Oddities & curiosities in Austin
Oddity shops, curiosity cabinets and taxidermy counters: 6 of the strangest small storefronts in Austin, Museum of the Weird, Martinez Brothers Taxidermists and Yarrow & Sage among them. The kind of quirky, offbeat retail you leave with a story and a jar of something. They spread across Downtown / 6th Street, South Lamar, Austin, North Loop, South Congress and 2 more areas, so two or three can make a whole afternoon. Every entry is hand-vetted against real sources — not scraped off a top-ten list or averaged out of crowd ratings.
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Museum of the Weird
Housed inside Lucky Lizard Curios and Gifts, three floors hold shrunken heads, a Fiji mermaid, a taxidermied two-headed calf, wax monster figures, and human remains alongside movie-prop oddities — an old-school American sideshow archive with a live performance stage built into the collection.
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Martinez Brothers Taxidermists
A hand-painted jaguar sign has marked the corner of Oltorf and South Lamar since Alex Martinez Sr. opened this family shop in 1962; third-generation taxidermist Alex Martinez II has since made props for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Robert Rodriguez's Grindhouse, mounted a black bear as a pet memorial, and once turned a grieving client's two house cats into hand warmers because "their fur was just so soft."
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Yarrow & Sage
Billed by its owners as 'Austin's only magical mini business park,' the North Loop storefront packs a spiritual shop, an in-house tarot reader (a licensed therapist doing readings on the side), and snacks into one space, while a sister South Austin location runs the herbal apothecary that supplies both — and the shop organizes the rotating, 200-plus-vendor Austin Witches Market.
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Curia Arcanum's House of Curiosities
A South Congress curio shop billing itself 'The Mystically Macabre Curio for the Curious & Odd,' open only three narrow windows a week — Friday and Saturday 1–7pm, Sunday 2–6pm — with a Jules de Gaultier line over the door: 'Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality.'
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The Herb Bar
Austin's original apothecary and metaphysical shop, open continuously since 1986 and passed down through a line of female owners, relocated in 2025 after decades on South Congress/Bouldin Creek to a Cherrywood storefront, where the bulk-herb wall now runs over 100 organic and wildcrafted varieties.
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The Antique Mule
An East Austin antique shop built around oddities and curios — Inuit carvings, religious santos, Ouija boards and stranger things (their motto: 'Nothing is too weird for us') — run by owner James, open Tue-Sun 11a-6p.
Oddities & curiosities in Austin — FAQ
Which oddity shops & curiosities in Austin are the strangest?
Ranked by how strange they actually are: Martinez Brothers Taxidermists, Yarrow & Sage and Curia Arcanum's House of Curiosities. Martinez Brothers Taxidermists — A hand-painted jaguar sign has marked the corner of Oltorf and South Lamar since Alex Martinez Sr.
Where in Austin are they?
Across Downtown / 6th Street, South Lamar, Austin, North Loop, South Congress and Cherrywood and 1 more. Each listing gives the neighborhood and address so you can cluster a couple into one outing.
Is this a good weird date in Austin?
That's what the list is built for. Every entry has a specific move rather than a vague recommendation — at Martinez Brothers Taxidermists, for instance: Stop in during shop hours to see the deer, coyote, mountain lion, and a bald eagle mid-mount on the workbench, and ask Alex about the Hollywood props or the mural on the wall.
How were these oddity shops & curiosities chosen?
An agentic research system digs for the genuinely obscure — the spots even locals miss — and every one is verified against real sources before it makes the list. We deliberately skip the landmarks already on every Austin guide.