Nestled in a pocket between South Congress Avenue and William Cannon Drive, The Little Darlin’ bar and restaurant was designed to bring a little bit of South Austin back to South Austin, co-owner Brian Buscemi said.
“There was a lot of ‘Keep Austin Weird’ in the ’90s, and to me, at that time things were really weird,” Buscemi said. “Sometime over the past 20 years or so the whole idea of keeping Austin weird [became] manufactured and almost commercial in a way. We felt like if we were gonna open a spot it would be the kind of place we grew up hanging out in.”
Buscemi opened The Little Darlin’ in 2016 with co-owners and longtime friends Mimi Rose, Mike Sanchez and Karinne Sanchez. The group met in Austin in the 1990s, Buscemi said.
“For the four of us it was just time to do it,” Buscemi said of opening the restaurant. “We didn’t have any real plan other than we knew we wanted to create a space where the four of us would want to spend our time.”
