The Best Restaurants in Kilgore, Texas

This is the reason people who do not live in Gregg County know Kilgore has food. The Tavern opened in 1939 during the East Texas oil boom, started as a beer joint, and grew the barbecue side into the main event. Texas Monthly has written up the ribs for years and describes them the way regulars do, hickory smoke with a dark red sauce that runs sweeter than the Central Texas style.

Order the ribs. Brisket and sausage are on the menu and they are fine, but the ribs are what the building is for. It sits by itself at the FM 2767 and Highway 31 junction, which means no walk-in trade and a room full of people who came on purpose.

Two brothers trained at Le Cordon Bleu in Minneapolis opened this room downtown and bet that Kilgore, sitting halfway between Longview and Tyler, could support real fine dining. The Longview News-Journal has covered it more than once as the upscale option in the county.

The menu runs certified prime ribeye, beef tenderloin, a venison chop, duck breast, pan seared snapper. Starters include fried barbecue oysters and lobster mac and cheese. Lunch is a lighter list of sandwiches, burgers and small plates at a much softer price, which is the cheap way into the same kitchen.

A small building downtown that has been grilling burgers since 1972, when Aldeen Barbee opened it. Johnny Wade ran it for about three decades, and after he died in 2014 his daughters Kourtney McDonald and Kayla Wade took it over and kept the method. The beef is ground chuck picked up fresh from Clower's Meat Market, a Kilgore butcher shop that has been family run since 1969, and everything is cooked to order.

The Longview News-Journal and the Tyler Morning Telegraph both ran features on the sisters in September 2021. The number three, chili and onions and cheese with the smoke sauce, is the order locals name first. Farm raised catfish is the other thing worth getting.

The building was a pool hall in the 1930s and the restaurant has been running since the early eighties. Jackie and Vicki Clayton took it over in 1990 and kept the shabby back patio charm on purpose. KLTV called it a Kilgore legend in a 2021 piece on the restaurant's history.

An outdoor stage went in around 2010 and acoustic acts now play most nights of the week on a large covered and air conditioned patio. The food is American bar food done properly, burgers, steaks, fried plates, and it is the one place in town where a table at nine at night is not a problem.

The downtown storefront is signed as Edgar's Big Taco #2, which tells you the operation outgrew its first spot. There is also a food truck working East Texas events, so the brand shows up in Marshall and elsewhere while the kitchen stays here.

Birria is the point. Queso birria tacos griddled in the fat, birria tortas, and guacamole made in house rather than scooped from a tub. Kilgore Main Street lists it among the downtown places locals actually eat at, alongside Char-Burger and Downtown D'Lites.

The newest serious barbecue in Kilgore. The owner spent twenty years in the oilfield before he started cooking off a trailer he called Slap Wagon #1, and the trailer turned into a room off Old Highway 135 near the interstate. Chopped brisket, ribs, sausage, burnt ends, baked beans and a loaded potato salad.

Worth knowing before you go, the website and some listings put the business in Longview because of the customer base off Interstate 20. The building is in Kilgore, about ten minutes north of downtown at exit 582.

East Texas takes crawfish seriously and this is the Kilgore address for it. Live boiled crawfish sold by the pound when the season is running, and a fried seafood menu, catfish, shrimp, po' boys, that carries the rest of the calendar.

It is a plain building on Highway 42 with newspaper on the tables, not a destination dining room, and that is the correct expectation. Crawfish season in this part of the state generally runs late winter through spring and the supply moves with the weather, so call ahead rather than assume.

Calesa is the sit-down Mexican room in Kilgore, out on Highway 31 East where Brigitta's used to be the other reason to drive that stretch. Enchiladas, fajitas, combination plates, the format East Texas families default to on a Friday.

It is listed on the Visit Kilgore dining pages and it is the option when you want a table, chips and a full menu rather than birria out of a downtown storefront. Different job from Edgar's, and both are worth having.

Kilgore does not have many breakfast options that are not a drive-thru, and this is the one people name. Breakfast burritos built with egg and your choice of bacon, sausage, chorizo or ham, plus cheese, onions and jalapenos, and breakfast tacos on corn or flour.

The Kitchen Sink is the one to order if you are hungry and only eating once. The Longview News-Journal wrote it up years ago for its burritos and tortas, and the formula has not changed since.

A small downtown cafe doing wraps, salads, homemade soups and loaded baked potatoes, and it is the only kitchen on this list that takes dietary restrictions seriously. Gluten free, keto and vegan options are on the regular menu rather than improvised at the counter, including a vegan baked potato and vegan paninis.

The room has bookshelves and quiet background music and fills with downtown workers between eleven and one. Kilgore Main Street lists it as a lunch favorite for locals and visitors both.