The Best Restaurants in Longview, Texas

Jim and Julia Barron opened this in 1972. Their son Brandon and his wife Lacy run it now, which makes it one of the few second-generation kitchens in Gregg County still cooking at this level.

The reason visitors miss it is the address. It sits inside Barron's, the home and gift store on West Loop 281, so there is no standalone restaurant facade to spot from the road. Texas Monthly carries it in its restaurant directory, and it is the most reliable answer in Longview when the meal has to be an occasion.

Brothers Eleazar and Rodrigo Mondragon brought Ki' Mexico over from Shreveport and opened inside Greenside Beverage Co., a downtown beer and wine bar, in 2025. The Longview News-Journal described the food as Mexican soul food rather than Tex-Mex, which is fair. This is not a combination-plate restaurant.

Texas Monthly ran a feature on it under the line that East Texas has never seen a taco joint quite like this one. That is more national attention than any other kitchen in Longview currently has, and it is the reason to walk downtown.

Papacita's has been feeding Longview since 1981 and moved into the Loop 281 building in 1992. It seats up to 550 people and still fills on a Friday night, which tells you most of what you need to know about its place in town.

The kitchen runs mesquite-grilled fajitas, homemade tortillas and the usual Tex-Mex spread. Some of the staff are second and third generation. It is a Longview Chamber of Commerce member and it is the default answer here for a family group that cannot agree.

Roland Lindsey opened the first Bodacious Bar-B-Q here in 1968, in a burger stand that had closed. He and his wife Nancy ran it for 50 years until he died in 2018. Nancy and their grandchildren run it now, at the same address, which is rare in Texas barbecue.

It was named a Texas Treasure Business in 2022 and it is listed in the Texas Historical Commission's Texas Time Travel directory. Read the sign carefully before you drive somewhere else. Several Bodacious locations across East Texas are separately owned, and this Mobberly Avenue store is the original one Texas Monthly writes about.

Judd Byrnes grew up in Longview and ran the downtown bar Willy G's before opening this with his partner Tommy Chacko. The kitchen is run by Ronald Porter, who taught for decades at the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco before coming to East Texas.

Texas Monthly carries it in its restaurant directory. The menu is eclectic rather than themed, and the room is built to work for a family at six o'clock and a bar crowd at ten.

Johnny Cace's Seafood and Steak House opened in Longview in 1949 and ran until 2015. It has a state historical marker. After it closed, the family restarted the recipes as Cace's Kitchen in a takeout and catering format, then in 2022 moved into 104 N Green Street, the building where the original restaurant began.

Gumbo, crawfish etouffee, crab cakes and the garlic croutons with cheddar spread are the reason people come. It is a counter and a small room, not the white-tablecloth steakhouse the name once meant, and it is honest about that.

Established in 1973 and past 50 years in business, this is a family operation the Longview News-Journal profiled in September 2025. It is tucked into the Shops at Guthrie retail center, which is why people who have lived here for years still call it a secret.

Boiled shrimp, raw oysters and US farm-raised catfish are the core of it. Buying fish over the counter and eating a plate in the same trip is the whole point of the place.

Open since 1983 and family owned the entire time. It is three businesses sharing one roof, a restaurant, a bakery and a meat market, which is why the burger is better than it has any right to be. The buns come off the bakery line a few feet from the grill.

There is a fixings bar and a run of Southern plates alongside the burgers. This is the cheapest genuinely good meal in Longview.

Pizza King has been running in Longview since 1965 on a family recipe it has never changed, and it is listed in the Longview Chamber of Commerce member directory. Sixty years in one town is the argument.

There are two operations. The East Marshall Avenue room is the original sit-down restaurant. PK To Go, at 3302 N Fourth Street, is a separate takeout counter with its own days and hours.