What is San Antonio like?

The riverwalk area downtown was nice, and it was cool to see the Alamo, but I just think that we missed out on whatever charms the city offers.

I have so much to add to this thread, but so little time to devote to it at present! Honeys, the rest of the city isn't creepy or unfriendly -- we can be the friendliest people in the whole of the freakin' universe! I will answer this thread properly once I get back. And yes, Tep and I are of the same mind, and Tep knows what the real, non-touristy side of San Antonio is like. I mean, gosh, Bandera Rd. is about as non-touristy as one can get.

Will respond with more later, darlings!

(I don't think of New Orleans as a particularly good city for touristing, for instance; most of the people who come seem to complain about all the things that make it not New York.)

I love living here. There are some moments where I feel envious of people who live in NYC or London or L.A., sure, mainly when I realize how many more opportunities overall they've got, but I feel so much of a pull to San Antonio that I don't know if I could give up this crazy place. I've got so many relatives here in town. I have deep personal roots to the city and I feel this need to be its personal champion, because so few people are willing to do that.

San Antonio is a rough gem waiting to be discovered. So many people quickly dismiss it based on its outward appearance, but in reality one has to scratch the surface in order to see what is truly gorgeous and "fall in love"-ish about it. San Antonio rewards multiple visits and lengthy stays, after you've gotten over the cliches and whatnot.

In order to appreciate San Antonio, you have to eat at where San Antonians eat, and most of the time it's either a Tex-Mex restaurant in the West side or a Bill Miller's anywhere in the city. We're big on buffets, and the best ones, in my part of town at least, are the Fire Mountain Buffet on Bandera Rd. (it used to be known as Ryan's) and the Taste of China Buffet on Colony Dr., close to Wurzbach and I-10. Look around. Listen to the conversations. You'll realize how diverse we are, how hard we are to pin down.

Stay in the West Side. Go to an authentic, honest-to-goodness molino or pan dulce bakery. Notice how friendly all the employees are. Smile. Eat delicious homemade tortillas or Mexican baked goodies. Realize how easy it is to get fat on this delicious stuff. Go to the East Side. Eat fantastic barbecue and see upwardly-striving African-Americans with their smiling faces, all purposeful and driven and proud. Don't go to the South Side. There's nothing there to see but uncultured and lazy people. The West Siders are thirsty for knowledge, and the East Siders are the hardest workers one will ever see, but the South Siders are fatalistic and boorish and the less time I stay there, the better. (I may say this as a biased North Sider, but my parents come from the West Side and I had HS classmates from all over the city and so I'm not coming from a truly snobbish and closed-minded viewpoint here.)

The area I live in is generally known as the Medical Center. It's currently in the middle of a major renovation that will accomodate the massive growth the area has undergone in the past ten years. It's pretty much indicative of the whole of the city. San Antonio is growing and changing at such a fast rate that even if you were to live here for just ten years, you could probably name at least five things about your neighborhood that are different from when you first moved in. Also, the demographics are changing just as dramatically, and with that the culinary selection. Back in the mid '70s, it was unheard of to find Indian or Thai restaurants anywhere near the city. Now, just 25 or so years later, Indian and Thai restaurants are popping up at an amazing frequency.

San Antonio's population also keeps growing. In the mid '80s, it was the tenth most populous city in the U.S.; now, it's the ninth and quickly overtaking number eight. The economy is also growing at a fast pace locally, which wasn't happening even twelve years ago. We're finally getting our own little economic boom. So even though the city's not really considered in the "big leagues" yet, watch and wait -- it will be soon enough.

Oh my God, I feel like I could still go on about the city. If you want to ask me more specific questions, I will go ahead and answer them. I feel like I've just given you an overview of what the city is like, with no real meat to speak of whatsoever. I mean, I haven't even brought up H-E-B or Central Market or the Santikos theaters or anything else a native San Antonian could talk about at length. My specialty is the whole of the Northwest Side, because that's my neighborhood and I've been all over that side, and I know quite a lot about the West Side because, as I stated earlier, that's where my parents come from. So please, ask away.

s/San Antonion/Moose Jaw/

We have had a few threads about SA (especially compared with other Texan cities).

(Note: That was truly meant to be tongue-in-cheek. Though I adore the city and will defend it any chance I get.)

I have a friend who used to live in San Antonio. He said he moved because it was "too fucking hot." Also, he's an architect, and the downtown redevelopment zone irked him beyond belief.

Many Coloured Halo OTM. I've lived in SA most of my life and have nothing else to add beyond what's already been said.

*almost faints*

JC, you... live... in... San... Antonio?? Or is this past tense?

*squeals in delight*

It thrills me to no end to hear of someone actually being cosmically drawn to my hometown. You don't know how much that means to me, especially since the city gets so little attention or respect as compared to other cities around the country. Thank you for being intrigued!!

1. New York 8,104,079 pop.
2. L.A. 3,845,541 pop.
3. Chicago, Ill. 2,862,244 pop.
4. Houston, Tex. 2,012,626 pop
5. Philadelphia, Pa. 1,470,151 pop.
6. Phoenix, Ariz. 1,418,041 pop.
7. San Diego, Calif. 1,263,756 pop.
8. San Antonio, Tex. 1,236,249 pop.
9. Dallas, Tex. 1,210,393 pop.
10. San Jose, Calif. 904,522 pop.

The mission tour is much more interesting for San Antonio/Texas/Mexican history.

1) 85 degrees and humid as balls
2) 60 degrees and calm
3) 30 degrees and wet

With any luck, you will not need a large overcoat of any kind.

And I hear this is supposed to be a nice place, but I haven't been to the Riverwalk in years.

http://www.lasleyendas.com/

#28's still pretty good.

You really can't compare southwest cities to eastern ones in those terms. We have more room out here. No row houses, no crowded downtowns. Just wasn't/isn't neccessary.

I've been there less than a half a dozen times but couldn't offer any advice. Everytime I've gone it was to see a specific person or place so I've done little exploring.

right, they aren't cities

Right, cause it takes a lot of sense to built cities totally ignorant of things like urban sprawl, smart growth, effective public transportation, mixed-use development, strip malls, office parks, and suburban homeowner's associations.

That sort of attitude towards city planning leaves you more often than not with developers focusing more on building out into higher income homeowner's associations and gated communities for rich white folk rather than focusing on the more centrally located mid-to-low income housing that the majority of the population needs to live in.

And you end up with all the new homes look like this:

http://a.im.craigslist.org/6r/WG/VbSTcjUFhH56VIMY92FwEqLr2CKI.jpg http://a.im.craigslist.org/j5/q4/S3u4fFTYFD070bpoAf5UvNgoyhwH.jpg http://a.im.craigslist.org/vy/B3/IpqnDmd1JgjQRQDmrOtee2lUPwws.jpg

Creepy sterile prefabricated alien colonies.

And by the way, I wasn't aware that anyone who lives in an apartment is living on top of each other, "like rats."

Those are suburban homes - of which the 'eastern seaboard' has plenty.

k here goes:
-- new place opened up called thai vegan. its exactly as the title suggests. pretty traditional thai menu, but all the meats are soy-based (beef, chicken, fish, tofu). service isnt amazing but im a forgiving and patient person and we eat here all the time because its right around the corner from our house.

-- the OG veg restaurant is called green, and there are two locations (pearl and the northside). theyve been around the longest and have all vegan desserts.

-- the owners of green also own earth burger which is an all-vegan fast food joint. best veggie burgers and spicy chikn sandwiches. its down the road from north star mall aka the place with the giant-ass boots out front. also just started making shakes from coconut ice cream.

-- i mention it upthread, but southtown has a place called senor veggie. all vegan, a lot of texas-y food. vegan bbq sandwich is my all-time ,like a vegan bill miller (local bbq chain).

im srs about getting a mangonada tho, dont leave my city without getting one. get a tamarindo straw with it, too.

http://www.lasnievesfruitcupssa.com/

ooh, do a ghost tour, SA is hella haunted

A+, everyone will like ghost tours! Do you have to pay extra to get ghost Custer or Bowie?

the McNay is very nice

All great! This morning I was leaning toward skipping the trip but now I'm sort of looking forward to it. Even if it means renting a car and, um, leaving San Antonio. Regardless, October is a long ways away.

The McNay is best, but the SA Museum of Art (in one of the old Pearl Brewery buildings) is wonderful, and I always have a better time there than I expect. Also, I live in New Braunfels these days, just 45 min or so north of downtown/riverwalk/Alamo. We have the Snake Farm and Landa Springs. Also Canyon Lake is a nice Hill Country driving area near us.

def stop at Central Market and buy some good cheese. good gift to bring back for people too if you do that sort of thing. the coolest grocery store ive ever been in. seems like a weird thing to recommend but it's so rad.

josh, driving around san antonio is one of the most san antonio things u can do, honestly.

central market is cool, its right next to university of the incarnate word. its like whole foods but localer.

im srs about getting a mangonada tho, dont leave my city without getting one. get a tamarindo straw with it, too.

I didn't know what this is so I googled "mangonada" and the wiki noted they were popular in Chicago. And indeed, there is a shop just a mile or so from my house!

http://los-mangos.com

Who knew?

yyyyyyyyyyyeah! you can do other flavors besides mangonada (im partial to fresanada) but thats legit! i forget about chicago's big mexican-american presence sometimes

Haha, yeah, that's why, as much as I love Mexican food it's not the biggest draw of the southwest. We've got plenty of Mexican food. A lot of carnitas and goat and Mexican chefs trying to push the food a tad closer to fine dining. That said, Texas Mexican is superb and in my experience better. And while we have our own variety, there is definitely better BBQ down there. (Though we can get quality Texas BBQ, like brisket, here as well.)

I was in SA once like 12 years ago and really liked it, a lot more than I expected I would. River walk was touristy but pretty, Mi tierra was memorable, the hotel had a Texas shaped waffle maker, there was a conference party at a giant bar full of taxidermy downtown, ate some good chicken fried steak and sweet tea and BBQ and cheap Lone Stars at some locals bar full of old couples dancing to Mexican music and I went up in the tower and hit the Alamo and saw Merle Haggard at a cowboy bar along the highway outside of town. The downtown Mercado was a trip too and I still regret not buying a mirror there and figuring out how to ship it home.

We took a side trip to Austin and it was fine but felt like any other city with hipsters and college kids and bars and whatever. San Antonio felt really unique in comparison.

Sadly and surprisingly I failed in my attempt to find a “Don’t Mess With Texas” belt buckle which I assumed would have been trivially easy. I did weirdly find one years later in Florence but buying that in Italy felt wrong.

The trove of tacky Texas memorabilia is roadside, at any Buc-ee's.

I think my favorite thing about Texas is that "Don't Mess With Texas" is their anti-littering campaign!

♫ we're throwin' our trash in a litter bag ♩♫ cause messing with Texas is a big drag ♩

Just had a mangonada. Tbh, what a weird drink that I probably don't need again. But for a sweet and sour chili-dusted ice cream fruit confection with a tamarind-encrusted straw ... yeah, it was different. Like putting tabasco on a sundae or something.

i mean its more of a sorbet than a drink. once u go spicy+sweet u never go back ime

i have an giant bottle of tajin in my classroom for lunchtime flavor dusting, its the best

Yeah, it's more of a parfait spoon treat, not a drink. Been researching chamoy, which has a fascinating history.

Here's a SA question: how long a drive to get to Lockhart? When I was in Austin last year I didn't have a car so couldn't make the BBQ pilgrimage, but I'm planning for it this fall.

About an hour and a half, maybe a bit less if traffic on I-35 isn't bad

My wife and I went down to Lockhart last year, came away thinking it was overrated. One of our favorite local BBQ joints just closed down here in Austin, so maybe the stuff we like isn't as embraced by everyone else.

Did Franklin ever reopen? I thought La Barbeque in Austin was awesome, not least for letting you order a week in advance.

Does San Antonio have much in the way of BBQ?

It's not SA, but on my last trip out I had terrific BBQ at Heavy's in Hondo (about a 45min drive W of SA on US-90). https://www.yelp.com/biz/heavys-barbeque-hondo

OK, two weeks until we're in San Antonio! I'm trying to find a good restaurant for 8 people on a Saturday night. Any good suggestions? Most of the folks will be getting a (very) early dinner from the chef at the Emma hotel, but it'll end so early I'm sure they'll want to go somewhere else.

My plan so far, btw: fly into SA on a Friday, head straight get BBQ (prolly somewhere in or around Lockhart, like Black's or Smitty's), save leftover BBQ for hiking Enchanted Rock the next day (weather permitting).

what are the 8 ppl into?

I think they'll eat anything, but I think prefer finer to street food. Which isn't to say fine dining, per se, just seated in a nice space with good food. No food restrictions, other than one guy claims he's allergic to avocados and someone else likes to balance her meaty meals with veggie meals. All like to drink.

Someone in the party just made reservations at Battalion?

ah, southtown area, arts district.

We'll be there this weekend, anything special going on? Is that crazy of me to want to go to Lockhart for BBQ, or are there better options closer to the airport? I'm intrigued by Heavy's, but Hondo is almost as far as Lockhart.

it's an hour drive from downtown, i mean if youve got the time and the hankering, who am i to stand in your way

i cant think of any big things happening rn. it's been raining more than usual.

a lot of the stuff rec'd itt is pretty close to the midtown area. the pearl, the witte, mcnay, central market, san antonio museum of art. so you could hit a bunch of those in one day.

honestly tho our food...if you arent getting full to the point of exhaustion every day that you are here, you might as well stay home.

ha, well, Chicago is not exactly wanting on the food front.

i have likely been talked into coming back for a 20th anniversary celebration of my old poetry slam

whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat

San AnTONio
Where I want to go, where I did grow, where I learned to know my flow and show my friends
The skills to fill the the pad with pen in hand
To share my private pain again and again for personal gain
Until I hit the end and ... silence again. But not in my brain. The words are still coming, like an avalanche I can't stop.
And all I can do is store them away for next time.
Or now.

(snaps)

Anyway, that's cool! We've been watching the amazing "America to Me" documentary and it's neat to see how important poetry slams are to so many students, as an outlet, as an important form of expression.

yeah i think i'll be back in may!!

We ditched the Italian place and are now going to the Esquire on Friday night, which is in the touristy area but still looks pretty awesome. Likely hitting Heavy's for BBQ on Saturday, then Saturday night ... I dunno, but puffy tacos are on the agenda.

San Antonio was OK! As my wife put it, you have to like any city that seems to place as much emphasis on the arts and culture as this one does. Riverwalk was silly but still nice to run along, we loved the chalk art going on and had fun watching a bike race around the Alamo. Alamo ... we spent 15 minutes walking around there. But we did take a trip to Enchanted Rock State Park, which was incredible, and we did get barbecue at 2M Smokehouse, which was good enough, and we got great Mexican at Pico de Gallo, and great food at the Esquire, and an absolutely terrible meal at Acenar. We got some great pastries at La Panaderia, great cocktails at Bar 1919, puffy tacos at Ray's, Pearl was gross at night but lovely for happy hour, we saw the country's biggest cowboy boots outside some mall, some art glass in the library. And so on. We packed a lot in, since our friends are lazy and wake up late.

Craziest might have been the 30 minutes or so we spent at the toilet seat museum. The artist, Barney, is 97. We got there right when he was closing up, and before he knew we were even there to visit had already enlisted our help as bystanders to move the big metal garage door gate shut. He apparently has sold the collection to someone in Dallas and is about to start boxing the toilet lids up, and he's old and soon to enter hospice (though he said if he makes it to 100 he is going to Dallas to celebrate) and could barley lift his arms, but he was super sharp, with a great memory and vision and hearing. He remembered my name right from the start (I can barely remember names) and basically told us where to find his favorite lids from memory. ("Do you see Dolly Parton, by the Berlin Wall? Look right, past the ..."). He had us sign the Illinois "spillover" lid (then had us fill out a reference form, replete with filing number, so that he can look it up later) and then asked me, apropos of nothing, if I was an Eagle Scout (I was!) and had me sign the Eagle Scout lid. We got eaten alive by mosquitos, despite his generous offer of spray aka "mosquito dope" to keep them at bay, but what a trip that was. He told us all about his previous lives as a preacher, a fireman, a plumber and then a toilet lid artist, he told us about his marriage to his now deceased wife (they were married 74 years!), and about his children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and 2 great-great-grandchildren (!). At the end of our visit, as he was preparing to pile some lids into very carefully numbered banana crates, he asked us to shut the metal door again, which felt a little like sealing someone inside of a crypt. Unforgettable experience.

we saw the country's biggest cowboy boots outside some mall

north star, thats like 10 minutes from my house lol

also that toilet seat museum story is all-time

Going to San Antonio for a few days in September.

Are there any good record stores there? If so, I would love to hear about them.

southtown vinyl is a newer place that ive heard is good

https://southtownvinyl.com

hogwild is the og place

https://recordstoreday.com/Store/5919

both of these are close-ish to downtown. where are you gonna be staying?

(nb i dont buy music much anymore)

Grand Hyatt Riverwalk, for a conference. Won't have wheels, I don't think, but I guess I can Uber/Lyft.

Southtown looks like it might be walkable if I get a few free hours ...

Hogwild was pretty much the only place I’d go to back in the day (1990s). I bought Swervedriver’s import-only Ejection Seat Reservation there and they made it quite the event, calling all the other staff to come meet the teenager who was buying the insanely expensive import CD.

oh yeah, you're not far from southtown at all! lots of fun stuff along s alamo st. if youe got the time and inclination, walk down alamo through the king william district, some good bars if u do that sort of thing (liberty bar, friendly spot), turn right on guenther to get to the record shop

xp

I had a blast (scrolls up) two years ago.