First things first. I got some pushback from my first accounting of the Top 10 restaurants for seniors, some going so far as to call it “ageist.” They questioned the criteria, as if there were some empirical formula for accommodating older diners. There’s not. I made the list from thousands of personal observations at restaurants all over San Antonio. Observations like what’s the age demographic around me? How does the staff treat older guests? Then I factored in the ease of accessibility and the noise level. And the most obvious thing: Good food that’s not afraid to abide a few adjustments when the need arises.
But let me make this follow-up more personal. These are places I would take my octogenarian parents if they were still mobile enough to get out of the house. Do the genealogical math, and it’s not hard to figure out that I qualify for the same discounts they get. If you’re not in the club, I get it. But someone you love most certainly is. This list, like the one before, is for both of you.
PART ONE:Best restaurants for seniors
410 Diner
It’s a funny thing that as we age, we like to announce our ages before we say something to give that thing an air of seasoned authority. That’s how I know that the couple in the booth behind me at 410 Diner were 82 and 83 years old, respectively. The numbers came up in a conversation they were having with owner Dean Badri as he made the rounds, greeting people by name, giving the kind of VIP energy that makes people feel seen. This art deco diner with checkerboard tile and a soundtrack straight out of 1957 speaks the universal truth about nostalgia: It’s not just nostalgia if it’s part of your living memory. If that memory carries you to a burger and a milkshake, 410’s got your number. Same with onion rings and chopped steak and strawberry shortcake. But it’s more than boilerplate diner food. It’s Chicken California with avocados and broiled tomatoes. It’s trout almondine with lemon-butter sauce. It’s Sonora Casserole with zucchini, corn and house-made tortilla chips. And it’s a daily blackboard of more than 20 vegetables, from black-eyed peas to stewed cabbage to green peas and mac-and-cheese. If the walls could talk, they’d say, “I’m almost 45 years old, and Elvis is alive and well.” 8315 Broadway, 210-822-6246, 410diner.com
Alamo Cafe
With room for more than 600 people and the parking lot they rode in on, Alamo Cafe makes it easy to access the food that made them famous: fajitas, chicken-fried steaks, margaritas and some of the best flour tortillas in a town that knows flour tortillas. It’s like a Tex-Mex Cheesecake Factory, with like a million things on the menu, including shrimp enchiladas, brisket tacos, chimichangas, spinach-and-mushroom quesadillas, carne guisada, even just plain chicken tenders. There’s room for you here. And there’s always more tortillas. 14250 San Pedro Ave., 210-495-2233, alamocafe.com
El Jarro de Arturo
There’s a tiled gazebo at the heart of El Jarro, a kind of raised altar where some of the restaurant’s most important work is done, a shrine where one woman pats and shapes and cooks flour tortillas on a flat-top grill that holds six at a time. We line up every Fiesta season for hours to get something like this at NIOSA, but it’s part of the ritual six days a week at El Jarro. It’s the kind of respect for Mexican kitchen-craft that extends with equal grace to tortilla soup, cheese enchiladas and a generous iron platter of beef fajitas. El Jarro occupies a shaded alcove of a sprawling shopping center that includes another San Antonio favorite for seniors, EZ’s Brick Oven & Grill. And there’s always a parking spot. I’ve passed by a couple of times in the rose-gold of the late afternoon, a time to appreciate that a margarita on the patio is one of life’s sunset rewards. 13421 San Pedro Ave., 210-494-5084, eljarro.com
Ernesto’s Mexican Specialties
There’s a table by the window at Ernesto’s, a table for two with a heart-shaped ring of flowers and a picture frame with scenes from a life well-lived. It’s the table that Ernesto Torres Jr. forever keeps reserved for his late mother and father, who infused Ernesto’s with the kind of courtly, old-world hospitality that he carries on in their honor. He touches every table, paying compliments, taking selfies with customers, even suggesting that he could predict by psychic connection which one of the restaurant’s seven sauces I might like. He was right in my case, for the Veracruz sauce animated by capers, olives, poblanos and butter — so much butter — for the all-in-one spectacle of the Neptune Platter, with shrimp and lobster and oysters and red snapper stuffed with crab. There’s Tex-Mex here, and tortilla soup and fried fish. But Ernesto’s is more about connection. Our collective restaurant experience revolves around the balance between service and food. And that ratio tilts toward service as we get older, as we feel less and less seen and respected by the people outside our immediate circle. At Ernesto’s, you are always in the middle of that circle. 2559 Jackson Keller Road, 210-344-1248, ernestosrestaurant.com
Frederick’s Restaurant
Mood lighting, white tablecloths, a bottle of Bordeaux, a cold gin martini. Welcome to weekday lunch at Frederick’s, where the clock has no say when the mood for fancy comes calling. Escargot, duck à l’orange, lamb chops, sole meunière, veal with mushroom Madeira sauce. It’s like stepping into a supper club from another time, in this case the year 2000, when Frederick Costa opened Frederick’s off Broadway. It was a pioneer back then, a melding of French and Asian influences and one of the handful of places to go all-out for an anniversary, exercise an expense account or impress a first date. It’s still all of those things. 7701 Broadway, Suite 135, 210-828-9050, fredericksrestaurantsa.com…