#Comprehensive Restaurant Guide

##Food

**St. Pita's** is the best in town, they have a few regular Pitas, with some daily specials that can range from nasty (it involved pork belly) to jaw-dropping (sweet potatoes and applewood smoked bacon). I usually go with the Classic, but their other one has sriracha-based sauce and a fried avacado. If you could combine the two, it would be heavenly.

St. Pita's and a few other trailers of varying quality are located at The Hitch on East Hopkins at MC Allen.

There's another trailer park at Hutchinson and Guadalupe with several more trailers, none of which I'm particularly familiar with, though I've heard nothing bad about any.

**Euro Cafe** is right next door and is vastly inferior when you could go to St. Pita's.

**Taproom** has hands-down the best burgers in town, and the largest selection of draft beer to boot. If you go on Thursdays you get a free pint with your burger free, which is the finest deal I've ever encountered.

**Dos Gatos** is a Kolache place on N LBJ behind the school down from the bus loop. It's a killer bakery, and you can't beat those kolaches for breakfast.

**Grin's** is a little further up from DG up N LBJ and is tucked up on the hill in a weird way that can make it easy to miss. It's a really standard bar and grill sort of place with notably good chicken fried steak and decent burgers, including a habanero/jalapeno special that is incredible if you're into spicy food.

**Thai Thai** is right across from Grin's and is infamous in San Marcos. On one hand, the food is incredibly flavorful and can get wildly spicy. On the other, it's really run-down, the servers speak little to no English, and you'll always meet people (including one com des professor) who have contracted various illnesses from there. I personally have never gotten sick, but when I do, I'll know why. While we're on the topic, avoid Imperial Garden Chinese (across from the big HEB) like the plague. 10/10 food poisoning risk.

**Asian Garden** is next door to EuroCafe and is a typical chinese place with good fried rice. Safe to eat here.

**YoSoCool** is one of the many frozen yogurt places in town, in the same strip as Euro and Asian Garden. It's my favorite for no other Reason beside it's the one I usually go to.

**Lolita's** is a drive-through breakfast taco place on Aquarena that's *unbeatable*. All the standard breakfast taco fare you'd expect. Cheap, too!

**Wok and Roll** is in my opinion the only viable Asian food in town. It's down Guadalupe a ways, and has never done me wrong. Their sushi is delicious, and the traditional chinese restaurant fare totally acceptable. I've had better, but not in San Marcos.

**Gil's Broiler** is on the other side of N LBJ more in town, and is famous for its buttery cinnamon rolls called Manskey Rolls. The burgers aren't bad either, but Taproom blows them out of the water.

**Gil's Fried Chicken** completes the trifecta of G-named restaurants (Gil's, Gil's and Grin's) and has the best fried chicken in San Marcos. I haven't been, but I've heard nothing but great things.

**Alvin Ord's** on University is generally lauded by students, but I've never been impressed. The place looks like it's either about to be torn down, or was recently abandoned. Some people call that "personality." Everyone recognizes the heavily-graffiti'd enclosed booths, and can never quite explain why they like their Schlotzsky's-style muffaletta sandwiches. I'm not saying don't go, I'm saying don't expect anything amazing.

**Zooka's** is a burrito place down University from Alvin Ord's which doesn't offer anything much greater than Chipotle or Freebird. Many people prefer it just for being local. I haven't been yet, but I'd go there before I went to the others just for that reason.

We have several pizza places in town:

**Valentino's** is cheap as hell, and you can taste it. Sometimes that doesn't matter though, especially when you've got enough beer to go with it, which at Valentino's, you will. This is the place you take a group of people after a meeting or something. Pitchers of Shiner are cheap, and the pizza tastes a lot like pizza. You'll find it on the square.

**Zen's** is my personal favorite. It's on the other side of the same shopping center where you'll find Dos Gatos, and has pizza that I score in my top 5. It's weird inside just like all of these "college-vibe" places are, seemingly adopted both the building and the furniture of an ex-chinese restaurant. The pizza makes up for it all though. The specialties are the way to go. Get more than you think you'll eat because you'll need it. I especially love the place for their draft beer, usually offering more interesting brews like IPAs and some from Real Ale.

**Gumby's** is the well-known college town staple. They deliver all over and have a few specialty ones, most famously the stoner pizza which is covered in munchies.

**D'Blazio's** pizza doesn't make up for the distance you have to drive to get it and the totally trashed interior.

These are all of the standard local places we tend to go, though I'm certainly probably missing a few.

We obviously have a lot of standard fast food places too: there are three **Sonics** in town, a **Jimmy John's** on the square which I *highly* recommend, a **Whataburger** on 123, along with all the usual fast food places you'd find in any other town. Our **Saltgrass** is pretty nice for its location over the river, but it's nothing to write home about food-wise.

##Bars

Simply, people tend to like **Taproom**, **Zelick’s**, and **Sean Patrick’s** the most.

After that, we have lots of other places that are great for specials like Treff’s, Grey Horse, and The Den for assorted specials like U Call Its depending on how drunk you want to get.

For interesting beer, go to Taproom, or buy your own at the **Yellow Store**.

For beer and coffee (and unbearable hipsters), check out the coffeeshop **Tantra**.

Avoid **Nephew's** at all costs.

##Coffee Shops
We've got lots of coffee shops that all correspond to different types of people:

**The Coffee Pot** is the closest to run-of-the-mill regular place. It's on the square, it's cozy, there's coffee and WiFi. It's got the "college town" trashy vibe a little bit, but it's bearable. Lots of normal students, lots of Bible study groups.

**Tantra** is down the street from Coffee Pot across from HEB and is filled wall-to-wall with dirty hippies. This is where you'll see people asking if the coffee is Fair Trade, and if they're not vegans, asking for organic half and half. It's not *bad*, it's just the people can be trying. I like them for the more interesting coffee (you can get cold brew, ristretto shots, pour-over), and they have an incredible happy hour where you get 2pt mini-pitchers of draft brew for the price of pints.

**Mochas and Javas** is another run-of-the-mill place, probably nicer than Coffee Pot. It's on N LBJ down from Dos Gatos. Frequented by on-campus students who don't want Starbucks. Cheap but good coffee.

**Wake the Dead** is the designated art student coffee shop. Lots of gallery shows there, very colorful. It's down RR12 a ways behind campus.