Brisket first. Panels second. Takes optional.
Taco Takes is the unofficial field guide to SXSW Interactive — where the best breakfast tacos are not on 6th Street, the founder vest is a valid ID, and the ratio matters. We roast the ritual, never the people.
Deep in the ♥ of TXTaco or Take?
Guess the originWe read a line. You guess: did it come off an East Austin taco truck's menu, or off a SXSW Interactive panel description? Ten rounds. Share your score. Extra doña for perfect games.
"Migas with brisket and avocado on a house flour tortilla"
The full theater of operation
Survival Tacos
Hour-by-hour Day 1. Breakfast taco routes that avoid 6th. Badge line hacks. TPR calculator.
Enter →Mail-Order Austin
Can't fly? Ship Franklin, Valentina's, Salt Lick, Tacodeli salsas, and Yellowbird to your door.
Enter →The Playlist
Our official SXSW-week playlist. Willie, Gary Clark Jr., Selena, Khruangbin, Explosions in the Sky. Deep in the heart of.
Enter →Salsa Verde
Short takes, morning debriefs, Rainey Street receipts. Fresh during show week.
Enter →Also Austin
Adjacent events, sister theaters, and where the Interactive crowd overlaps with film + music.
Enter →Why Tacos
The manifesto. Why this exists. Why we're not affiliated with SXSW and never will be.
Enter →We've got receipts
Dated · Sourced · Regrettable"AI-native storytelling in the era of synthetic authenticity"
— Actual SXSW 2024 panel title. We didn't invent this.
$28 breakfast taco at a rooftop activation with a QR code menu
— Bar tab receipt, 2023. The taco was fine. The QR code was not.
"We're not a media company, we're a technology company that happens to publish content"
— Overheard, Fairmont lobby, 4:47pm. Fifth time that hour.
Uber surge to Franklin BBQ: 4.2x. Wait time once arrived: 3 hours 40 minutes.
— Screenshot on file. Brisket was, however, correct.
From the same studio
Panel Fatigue NetworkPanel Fatigue
HQHQ · The whole network · Everywhere there's a badge line
Command center for every theater of operation.
The Strip Down
CES 2027 · Las Vegas
SXSW is the humane CES. Vegas is the other one.
Addled Week
Advertising Week NY 2026 · Midtown Manhattan
New York's version of panel overload.
Shop Blather
ShopTalk 2027 · Las Vegas
Retail's annual group chat, transcribed and roasted.
Davos Digested
World Economic Forum 2027 · Davos, Switzerland
Every plenary, panel, and private dinner — condensed for the rest of us.
Spray Cannes
Cannes Lions 2027 · Cannes, France
Rosé, rooftops, and the awards-show industrial complex.
Possibly There
POSSIBLE 2027 · Miami Beach
The marketing conference where everyone's possibly there.