How did we pick these?
The Kaufman Chamber of Commerce publishes a visitor guide that lists nearly forty food businesses in town with street addresses. That was our starting point, because an official local list is better proof that a kitchen exists than any ranking site, and then we went looking for a second source on every name before it went on this list.
Three cleared the bar comfortably. Jesse's Fajitas n Ritas and Especially For You Tea Room both run their own websites with their own hours, phone numbers and addresses, and both are in the chamber guide. B&B Steakhouse and Meat Market has a chamber listing, its own business page describing the thirty day aged beef, and the same address and phone across every directory we checked. The bottom four rest on the chamber guide plus current public reviews, and we have said on each listing exactly where the evidence runs out.
What we cut is the part worth reading. La Pradera holds one of the best review records in town at 404 East Highway 175, and the domain that looks like its website is a luxury housing development in Robinson, near Waco, which is a good reminder that a plausible looking domain is not verification. It is almost certainly fine and we could not confirm enough to rank it. Roma's, Morita's Brunch and Latham Bakery & Deli all look real and none of them appears in the chamber guide, so we had one source each. Carrera's on South Washington has a long Tripadvisor history and mixed recent reviews, and we would rather send you to Jesse's. The taqueria counters inside convenience stores, Taqueria Guadalupana, Taqueria Ferrers and Sensei Hibachi Express among them, are real and useful and not what this list is for. Every national chain on South Washington Street is excluded on principle, which removes about half of the chamber's own list.
One source we deliberately did not lean on. There is a dining directory for Kaufman that reads like a local guide and is in fact generated from Texas Comptroller sales tax permit records, with no author and no publication date, and its phone numbers conflict with the ones on the restaurants' own pages in at least two cases. Permit data proves a business registered. It does not prove the doors open.
No business on this list is a client of ours. Nothing in our client file matched Kaufman and restaurants, so this is a straight editorial ranking with no partner placements to disclose.
What should you know before you go?
Kaufman has two eating districts and they are nothing alike. The square and the two blocks around it hold everything locally owned and interesting, four of these seven. South Washington Street is the highway strip, where the chains are, and it holds the other three plus about twenty franchises.
The week is the thing to plan around. The best room in town is shut Sunday and Monday, and the tea room only serves lunch five days a week.
| Restaurant | Where | Kind | Own site | Closed days |
| B&B Steakhouse and Meat Market | 112 N Washington St | Steakhouse and butcher | No, business page only | Sunday and Monday |
| Jesse's Fajitas n Ritas | 101 W Mulberry St | Tex-Mex | Yes, with hours | Monday |
| Especially For You Tea Room | 100 W Grove St | Tea room lunch | Yes, with hours | Sunday and Monday |
| My Love's Diner | 215 W Mulberry St | Home style diner | No | Not published |
| Moon's Fried Chicken Cafeteria | 2205 S Washington St | Cafeteria | No | Not published |
| Kaufman Burgers | 807 S Washington St | Burger stand | No | Open seven days |
| La Fuente | 209 Terrell Hwy | Mexican | No | Not published |
The practical version of that table is this. Thursday, Friday or Saturday gets you the whole list. Tuesday and Wednesday get you most of it. Sunday gets you a lunch at Jesse's or a burger, and Monday gets you very little.
Where should you eat if you only have one meal in Kaufman?
The square, and which room depends on the hour. If it is between 11am and 2pm on a Tuesday through Saturday, go to Especially For You, because eating lunch inside the historic bank building is the one thing you cannot do anywhere else in Kaufman County. If it is dinner on a Thursday, Friday or Saturday, go to B&B and order a steak you watched someone cut. If it is Sunday, it is Jesse's before 3pm.
What should you do next?
Park on the square. Walk the courthouse block, look in the window of the meat case at B&B, and eat at whichever of the four downtown rooms is open at the hour you turn up. You will not need the car again until you leave.
Then take in the rest of the county. The best restaurants in Terrell is 15 miles north and the best restaurants in Forney is about the same distance northwest, both bigger towns with deeper benches, and the best places to eat in Canton is 30 miles east if you are heading out for First Monday. The Kaufman city hub collects everything we publish here, and the best restaurants category has the same treatment for other Texas towns.
