Headed to San Angelo soon. What are some recommendations for places to eat.

I enjoy: Zero One and The Grill for dinner and drinks, Mr. T's Deli for home style cooking, Chef Jason's deli (located at the Peasant Village restaurant) for a weekday lunchtime sandwich, Nakaruma for Asian and sushi, and that's about it. Maybe I'm picky, but I don't care for the "usual" San Angelo spots like Fuentes, Zentner's Daughter, Twin Mountain Steaks, etc. For dessert, TJ's froyo can't be beat, even in a bigger city!

I'll second the above and a couple more. Cork and pig has great wood fired pizzas. Armenta's and Franco's are tied for best Mexican food in my book. Last, there's a new place called the pearl for burgers and such. I've only had their appetizers, but they were good and people tell me the food is as good. Great beer selection too.

+1 for what math said. I think that Peasant Village is hard to beat for dinner vs. lunch though. I’ve never been in for lunch because everyone I have talked to that has gone says it is a cluster and people are rude if you don’t know what you are doing. Just weird to me, but I love going in there for dinner.

We ate at the Pearl Friday night and it was good, but my wife ended up with food poisoning, but the beer could have had something to do with it…

I am also one of those people that doesn’t like the usual places people say to eat at in Angelo. I have never like Zentner’s or Twin Mountain. Francos is so small that it is such a pain to get into, and I think there is better Mexican food (Hildagos).

Dang, I lived there 35+ years and moved away 9 years ago and of all the restaurants listed, I only knew 4 of the names.....

My how things have changed.

Zentner's - gone.
Chilangos- gone
Henry's- not near what it used to be like.
Lowake Inn- Still there???
Cafe Knickerbocker- Long gone....
China Garden before Tony died and it turned into a buffet.
Charcoal House- Gone


I guess the chains have taken over.

Sorry for the rant...

The ones that we listed aren't necessarily chains, a majority of them are locally owned. Downtown has absolutely blown up in the last 5 years. If you haven't been back in 9 years, you wouldn't recognize it.

Charcoal house isn't gone, but it's only on the north side now.

The original zentners was light years ahead of daughter. It sucks they closed.
Henry's is still very good.
China garden is sketchy.

Chilangos - blast from the past on that one! We used to eat there a lot growing up

Lowake is still up and running I believe

Tony closed Charcoal House a couple months ago. Facebook has several Angelo-centric pages!

My wife gets back twice a year, but I haven't made it since Thanksgiving of 2011.

Thanks for all the recommendations.

That's unfortunate about Charcoal House, they always had great burgers.

Another burger joint that just opened on the north side is Hef's, originally from Abilene. The one in Abilene is excellent, but I haven't had a chance to get by the one here.

Franco's remains to me the best TexMex I've ever eaten. It is worth the stray bullet or possible shanking on that side of town.

Born & raised in Angelo until I came to aggieland. Here are my recommendations/opinions:

Fuentes sucks, Armentas or Franco's all the way for Angelo Mexican food.

Best Chinese food is at the airport.

Mr. T's pales in comparison to how it used to be. But still has good breakfast and chicken fried chicken. Or, sadly, the bowling alley has a great breakfast place. It's called T-Bears.

Chef Jason's at lunch is really tough to beat...huge sandwhiches. My go to is the royal. Mesquite Bean has a great lunch too. It's downtown at the cactus hotel.

The Grill on the west side of town has a cool atmosphere and good drinks. Food is good too. Great place for a date.

Cork & Pig Tavern (CPT) as mentioned above is real good. The Grill & CPT are related I think cause of similar owners but I don't remember.

Best Steak in town? Make the trip to wall, Tx and go to the old gin steak house. I went to Zetners over Christmas break, got the KC and was kind of disappointed, not like I remember.

If you wanna wine and dine a girl, take her to the silo resteraunt at chicken farm but be ready to pay a boat load. I've never gone but my parents go for their anniversary sometimes.

Best BBQ is at packsaddle probably. Used to be RJs (was a top 50 in Texas Monthly a while ago) but it's kind of started to lack what it used to in my opinion. Packsaddle also has the best catfish.

Lastly, go to sealy flats, drink a beer, and listen to blues Thurs-Sat night.

I'm from Wall. Is the ole gin still around? I had my rehearsal dinner for our wedding there and haven't been back since. I thought it closed and became Mexican food or something.

It was good but I'd go the extra 20 miles and head to Lowakes personally.

According to emails I get from Angelo about other things, the gin is still open. And the folks that are in the club that go there would not go there if it was not decent!

It's still open, a lot of people still make the drive out to go eat there.

Appraiser, I went and looked you up on the intro thread. I saw you are a Hawk. While I didn't go to school there, I live on Susan Peak Rd from late '86 till I moved to TN at the end of '04. My house was the one at the split of Susan Peak and the road to the gins.

Small world.

interesting. I usually pass by wall on my way in on 87 but don't ever cut off to go through it even though my family still lives out there. it's a world of different from when i graduated and there was nothing except for JC's where we went for lunch off of the highway.

Lowake Steakhouse isn't quite what it was when it became "famous". Ate there quite often growing up and still like to drop by just for the hell of it on my way to hunt.