Raul's was a live music nightclub at 2610 Guadalupe Street in Austin, Texas in the late 1970s and early 1980s, which started off as a Chicano music venue, but then specialized in punk rock music. The location is near the University of Texas campus.
It was the first club of its kind in the city and, for a time, the only venue for punk/new wave bands. The more successful bands from that scene were the ones who broadened their fan base by also playing at other Austin venues, such as the Continental Club, Soap Creek and the Armadillo World Headquarters.
Originally a bar run by Hispanics Joseph Gonzales (deceased in May 1996) and Roy "Raul" Gomez, when, in late 1977, four musicians, Jesse Sublett, Kathy Valentine, Carla Olson and Marilyn Dean, approached them, looking for a venue to play, since those performers had difficulties being accepted elsewhere. The four musicians had formed a new punk band called the Violators. Sublett, along with Eddie Munoz and Bill Blackmon comprised the other new punk band in town, the Skunks. Raul's gave both bands a chance, but at first were skeptical about the new style, which was quite different from their original conception of operating a bar that catered to Tejano music. The Violators and the Skunks first played at Raul's in February 1978 to a mildly enthusiastic audience. Thereafter, the Skunks, with mainstay Jesse Sublett, and a new guitarist, Jon Dee Graham, garnered a large and devoted following, not only at Raul's but other, more mainstream venues around Austin.