Champions Austin Restaurant & Bar

Stopped by Champions for happy hour and it was a great experience. The bartender Hailey crushed it - she was all by herself with a full bar and was very attentive to everyone. I grabbed a Modelo then asked if there was a way to make the "Honey & Ginger" mocktail but add some gin and she was able to accommodate that. Highly recommend it btw!!! Very light and refreshing!

Surprisingly good.I was not expecting this.* * *Champions is the Sports Bar in the Courtyard Marriot.Marriot food is nearly always good.Marriot used to be expensive and overpriced for food - then completely fair market price and good value - and then expensive and overpriced.Most of the Marriot restaurants continue to be expensive and overpriced.But Champions when I was there was back to being good value for the money.I was impressed and grateful.* * *I had a good experience which I will tell you about below.But before I get started - let me comment on the large number of negative reviews.The reviews are truthful but give an incomplete picture of what Champions is about.One set of bad reviews date back to about 2015.All signs are that in 2015, Champions was just terrible.What you read is what you would have gotten.The other set of reviews is about service quality.The servers and people who work there are perfectly nice and perfectly hard working.Staffing levels are kept thin.This means that it is possible for the people who work there to get completely overwhelmed.I showed up at Champions a few hours before a big Texas Clemson game - an early rounder for the National Collegiate Football Championship.Usually when tourists come to Austin, they leave the hotel and go see Sixth Street or the city.Because these were football fans pregame - and they did not have cars to tailgate with - they were basically staying at the hotel resting up before the major festivities.So Champions was atypically packed with a zillion people all wanting lunch.The bartender and the maitre d' had to take care of this giant horde all by themselves.Now to be honest, the maitre d' was not doing much except waiting for guests to talk in the door.This meant the bartender had to take the orders, make the drinks and buss the tables for a zillion people.She was working at lightning speed and was stretched beyond her limits ...While she was doing this, tables were going dirty and the place looked bad.The bartender finally got to me, cleared the bar around me and served wonderful food.But 99.999% of the time, the Champions staff will not be facing such a work crunch.All signs are that in normal times, service is fine.* * *I had a first rate and highly innovative Cobb salad.What was the gimmick?Almost no lettuce!Marriot piled on the expensive ingredients - while most people pile on the lettuce as a cost saving.The expensive ingredients tasted first rate. (A special shout out for the smoked turkey and the Mexican street corn.)And the salad itself was big.Good value for the money.* * *The bar selection was wonderful.I got all historical and ordered a Crown Royal.This could have happened at any bar ...Champions was just the unlucky location where I got a lesson in whiskey history.Whiskey has vastly improved in the last 30 years.The old brands our parents used to like just don't cut it any more.You can now get artisanal Canadian blended whiskey to die for.Brands like Crown Royal or in Bourbons, Jack Daniels and Wild TurkeyAre now third rate merchandise.Crown Royal is rough. Really rough.And rough without tasting good.Jack Daniels and Wild Turkey are smooth without tasting like much.A good artisanal whiskey these days is smooth AND tastes wonderful.But struggling my way through the Crown Royal ...I now understood why my parents drank Manhattans or Old Fashioneds rather than straight up whiskey.Or why they drowned their whiskey with ice cubes.Their whiskey was not good enough to drink straight.The same applies for them loving martinis - while modern gins are totally good enough to be enjoyed neat.Vermouth was a necessary protection against unpleasant merchandiseIn an age where people could not imagine anything better. * * *Marriot gets no credit for me getting a whiskey history lesson.But they did serve me a lovely salad in a nice room.And they served it at a fair price.Thumbs up all the way.

Went after a morning UT game to have a couple of drinks prior to dinner.Pretty good atmosphere and the place was initially packed then slowed as the morning game traffic folks left.To me the key to a sports bar is flowing food, drinks and service.We had fish tacos, cesar salad and guac and chips. The food was fine, but the flowing part was not there. The service was painfully slow even when it emptied out. We ended up getting the bill from the quality checker who we asked for after our server went MIA.Tip of the day: the seating is a little confusing. If you enter by the hotel side you need to go to end by the bar to make sure you get seated or added to the list. This has the elements of a real good sports bar, the service needs to keep the drinks and food flowing.

This was the perfect bar to watch the Super Bowl. We had a great spot right in front of a tv. While service was incredibly slow our waitress was good and nicely apologized for the slowness in getting our food. There was a runner that came to our table and was a bit rude. He came with the food, announced what it was and obnoxiously said, "Is this your food?" Excuse me?? I've never been to a restaurant where I had to say yes that's my order or tell the server what I ordered. He could use a hospitality refresher. The food is what you'd expect at a sports bar. Not gonna blow your socks off but there's something on the menu you can eat. As you can see from the pics we ordered and are a lot. The corn with the fish tacos was sampled by everyone and left there. Not good. We were a little surprised that the wings weren't pre-sauced but came with sauce to dip the chicken in. The drinks didn't miss the mark...they were good. If you need a good spot to watch your favorite sporting event, this place has good tv views all around so worth visiting while getting a good drink.

If you are downtown Austen, want to watch sporting events on TV, and want pub food, then Champions hits the spot. The Loaded Nachos and the wings were excellent. While they were extremely busy, we didn't have any issues with our service.

This place is connected to the Courtyard /Residence Inn hotel. The bar is decent size and is generally packed. The restaurant is fairly large, and the menu is decent. Typical Texas based meals. However, they have a few fish based proteins that might be a surprise. Frank was my waiter, and he kept me informed on the timing of the drinks and food throughout my stay. The wait times can be a little longer than most places, but not killer long.I started with the Iron Skillet Cornbread. It was well cooked but dry. The honey butter could have been better and more of it.Then...it was a hard decision between the cheesy chicken Enchiladas or the charred WAGYU short ribs or the Southern Fried Chicken...have to be honest it all looked good, so I did what your not supposed to do and asked Frank for his recommendation.The fried chicken is half a chicken (wings, thigh, breast) plus the sides. The Enchiladas are the most modest of the offerings with two Enchiladas and order chips on the side. You will want them for the extra sauce.OVERALL, I wasn't completely disappointed. Ii took a little longer than it needed for dinner with only me, but it was good. Come for a good time and don't look at the clock.

My family and I went here about 45 minutes before closing time. We were greeted but it took a minute for staff to acknowledge us. Since they were nearing the closing time we decided to order burgers to go. We each order a different burger and substituted the impossible patty on each burger. My husband's double meat burger had one impossible patty and the other beef, his burger was flavorless. My burger was the guacamole burger it had the impossible patty but no flavor around at all, even the guacamole was bland. My son had a simple burger which also missed the mark.Our total for 3 burgers was $85, which was way too expensive for something that was flavorless. I have to say when we return to Austin, this would not be a place we will visit again.

First stop in Austin and needed a beer! great spot, Geneva was amazing and gave us all the top spots to visit in town.

This past Wednesday my teammate and I hosted a "happy hour" after a conference that was taking place directly across the street at the convention center. The turn out for the event became much larger than we anticipated. They had ONE server in the restaurant and two managers walking around supervising. They told us our party had become more than we made the reservation for and we needed to move to the private event space and pay a deposit. We did that happily and asked if we could also open a tab at the bar to make things easier for the server and was told no. People waited over 20+ minutes in our space for service and drinks. I asked since we paid for the private space can we have our own server and was told no. When our "time" was up we still had people waiting for things they had ordered 20+ minutes for and we were told we had three minutes left because they needed the server back on the floor since he was the only person. We spent over 1K$ and were treated like we were a burden on the business. Rushing us out being annoyed by ANYTHING we asked. Would never suggest an event or large gathering there.

Service in this establishment was piss poor. Me and my lady went to the bar ( open seating) and sat down. The bartender gave eye contact, but no acknowledgement. Ok...Cool. When she walked by the 2nd time I knew it was a problem. Again, no acknowledgement. My lady proceeded by getting our own menus. The bartender (her) walked by us again and started making drinks without saying "Hi"; "I'll be with you in a moment"; in other words fukk the melinated people. I'll get to them when I get to them was the attitude being displayed. My woman acknowledged her; "Are you going to let us know we are here" Her words: "what do you want?" Unacceptable customer service!! A bartender at that!! At a prestigious place. Of course, a complaint was logged with the manager. I believe she was accepting her (the bartender) behavior. Not once did she say anything about the behavior. 2025 and they still acting like this. Go kick rocks bartender broad and the Champion Restaurant in The Marriott in Downtown Austin, TX. I won't spend my money there again, and I suggest people that look like me the same. TRASH!!