Huntsville – Since 1936, Café Texan has been sitting on the corner of the square in Huntsville and it’s considered the oldest café in Texas. “When they approached me I said ‘A café in Huntsville. Tell me more,’” said Tom Mangos.
Tom isn’t from the Lone Star State, but his expertise was sought out by owner Vance Howard when he bought the building Café Texan calls home in 2020. The café was a victim of COVID and shut down for three years before being totally revamped by Howard, but some locals wanted the old Café Texan back. “We’ve thought about making T-shirts that say, ‘We love the Café Texan,’ and making equal as many that says, ‘You ruined the Café Texan,’” said Tom.
With a whole new look and new attitude towards taste buds, Tom got a chance to make the café his own with a few guidelines. “Vance asked me to keep a couple of things,” said Tom. “One, he said, ‘I always want to be proud of it.’ Two, he promised me that I’d always be having fun, which is unheard of in my business. And three was we would have chicken fried steak.”
More on chicken fry in a few. Before you get to the meal, you can’t help but notice the museum connected to the café. “This is actually a not-for-profit,” said Tom. “Vance has the museum next door, which is always open when the café is open, free to anyone who wants to come see it. And then all the proceeds from the café go to local, state, and regional charities.”
“We made sure that we didn’t overbuy anything because we knew it was going to be a small space,” said Savanah Davis. “So everything has a very specific space.”
Savanah is the museum curator and this free museum has some amazing artifacts like historical samurai suits, signed letters from George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Davy Crocket. Gladiator Masks. And even Napoleon’s actual dueling pistols. “They did not want to sell us those because they didn’t believe that we were a real museum at first,” said Savanah. “But we went ahead and signed a contract with them that said if we ever decide to sell them again, that we’ll sell them back to them. Yeah, most of the stuff in here we get from Sotheby’s or Christie’s auctions.”
After appreciating the artifacts, your appetite is primed for a Texas-sized breakfast. Luckily you can order chicken fried steak to start your day at Café Texan. Tom gets things started with the beef. “So this is an eight-ounce cubed steak,” said Tom. “It’s already as tender as can be. It’s already been pounded out, passed through the knives. And then we bread it with our seasoned breader here, and then it goes in the buttermilk. And then we’re going to put it back in the breader, and then we’re going to put it in the fryer. This isn’t a frozen, chopped, formed product. It’s actual whole muscle beef. Best quality we can get, right, for sure. Nothing but stuff from scratch here at the Café Texan.”
When there’s chicken fried steak you know there’s got to be gravy to go with it. “So we use cream gravy, and our cream gravy does not have meat drippings in it because some guests may not eat pork or they might,” said Tom. “So we make it with clarified butter, all-purpose flour, fresh cracked pepper, kosher salt, and heavy cream.”
A few fried eggs and haystack potatoes complete the ensemble. And don’t forget the biscuit! “Big biscuit,” said Carson. “A biscuit’s a meal in itself.”
Oh, but we’re not done yet. Tom wanted to showcase the sweeter side of breakfast with their candy bar French toast. “We have a mascarpone and cream cheese mixture that we put Milky Way bars in,” said Tom. “So you get four pieces of bread made into two sandwiches. It’s almost like a Monte Cristo would be, right? With all the goodies inside. This is better.”
Once the toast is grilled up, it gets plated with spicy meat sticks. “So we’re going to do jalapeno bacon today with this,” said Tom. “So that’s our super spicy jalapeno bacon. It looks a little dark, but that’s because it’s cured. It just has that coloring to it. We fresh whip our cream every morning. A little bit of powdered sugar on top, just in case it wasn’t sweet enough already. And we’re going to put a nice sploosh of mint, and we sell that to our guests.”
Well, when it comes to breakfast in Texas, chicken fried steak is always acceptable. So we’re going to start with that, and just cut off a piece and go to town, because who doesn’t like chicken fried steak for the first meal of the day? The breading on that chicken fried steak is fantastic, crunchy, and delicious. That gravy is out of this world. And the tenderness of that steak? I think Elvis would sing about that one. “I’m not a big connoisseur of chicken fried steaks, I will say, but I do love it,” said Savanah.
We’ve had a lot of chicken fried steaks across the State of Texas, and this one is right up there. “There’s a lot of meat and not too much excess batter,” said customer Richard.
That’s enough of this chicken fried steak. We’re going to move on to breakfast dessert. Smells like French toast with a candy bar in it. Whether or not you’re a sweets for breakfast type of person, this is just straight up good. Well balanced, and that Milky Way comes through in a big way on French toast. Bringing even more balance to the force of the French toast, the jalapeno bacon. You mix it in with that jalapeno bacon, and it’s the perfect combination. It’s like a sweet, savory symphony. “It’s just the perfect amount of spicy, where it goes really well with eggs and hash browns and everything else,” said Savanah.
Well, whether it’s chicken fried steak for breakfast, lunch, or dinner or a sweet, savory breakfast, coming to the Café Texan in Huntsville is definitely well worth a stop on the Texas bucket list. “To come here and have not only the service in this beautiful building and see our museum, the food is lights out,” said Tom. “It’s delicious. You’re not going to be disappointed.”