Birdie's

Birdie's is a counter-service restaurant and wine bar.^[1]

The restaurant's business and service models, which Austin Monthly calls a "new take", maintain a minimal front-of-house staff; it takes no reservations, all diners stand in line to place their initial orders and seat themselves, and further service is not assigned to a single server.^[3][4][5][1]

All workers are paid an hourly rate that does not assume tips; tips are pooled among all staff proportionately to the hours worked that week.^[2] The restaurant closes for two weeks in August and two weeks in late December/early January to provide staff paid time off.^[5][2] It offers paid family leave and health insurance.^[2]

The restaurant is open Tuesday through Saturday.^[2] It sometimes closes to become a pop-up Italian restaurant called Aiello's, named after Malechek-Ezekiel's grandfather, who immigrated from Calabria.^[2]

The restaurant was named to the New York Times 2021 Restaurant List.^[6] The Austin American-Statesman named it Austin's best new restaurant of 2021.^[7] Birdie's was also named a Best New Restaurant by Bon Appetit and Esquire Magazine.

In 2023 Food & Wine's named Birdie's its Restaurant of the Year, calling it "the restaurant that everyone wants in their neighborhood".^[2][3][8] According to the New York Times' Eric Asimov, writing in 2024, it is "one of the most acclaimed restaurants in the country".^[9]