The best hole-in-the-wall restaurants in Texas are representative of the diverse influences that crafted traditional Texas food. These are institutions that serve comfort food from neighborhood locations. There’s simply not enough space to list all of the best mom-and-pop restaurants in Texas. Texas is a massive state — it takes as long to drive from Houston to El Paso as it does to drive from El Paso to Los Angeles.
However, the restaurants included here make a viable argument for the title. They are where locals take friends and family. They aren’t tourist traps. Some of them are famous, and many of them draw a crowd, but they are deservedly famous and the crowd is local. Tex-Mex is one of the state’s best-known genres, but these restaurants also demonstrate the impact Cajun, German, Czech, and Southern recipes have had on regional cuisines. Texas has always been a melting pot of flavors, and there are also examples of how the cuisine is continuing to evolve in exciting ways. These restaurants are among the best in the Lone Star State.
Habanero Cafe — Austin
Habanero Cafe is a neighborhood restaurant that serves some of the best Tex-Mex food in the state. There’s a saying in Austin that no matter when you moved here, old Austin died the day you arrived. It’s a nod to a city that is trying to hold on to its identity in a constantly evolving landscape. Habanero Cafe has been on both sides of the equation. It’s an OG now that has been serving Tex-Mex classics since 1998. However, it is a spin-off from Dos Hermanos, a small local chain that was popular in the ’80s, and some locals lamented the death of old Austin when it sold three of four restaurants to outside buyers in the late ’90s.
Arturo Ibarra bought the remaining location from his father and his uncle (the Hermanos), and kept the legacy of the Tex-Mex staple burning by serving top-notch breakfast and lunch plates. If you visit on a Sunday morning, you will hear a local crowd ordering Roberto’s Special (two over-easy eggs topped with ranchero sauce and a side of beef fajita served with French fries and charro beans) even though the menu item was renamed years ago. And you won’t hear the waitress correct them because they still remember what the order means. Other favorites include chile colorado, caldo de res (weekends only), and gorditas…