Blue Bonnet Café - Marble Falls, TX

Posted By Michael Stern on June 17, 2008 10:54 AM

The Blue Bonnet Café is where locals have been coming to eat three meals a day for nearly fourscore years. It is a modern place with multiple dining rooms, but it retains its old-fashioned, down home feel, and it is staffed by a team of super-friendly waitresses in bright red Blue Bonnet t-shirts.

At breakfast, eggs are accompanied by hash brown potatoes or grits and your choice of thin toast, biscuits, or double-thick Texas toast. Lunch and supper begin with a basket of excellent rolls, including four-by-four inch yeast rolls with a bakery sweetness that perfumes the whole table as soon as you tear one apart. With the rolls are rugged-textured cornbread muffins.

The menu has something for everyone, from salads and sandwiches to big beautiful hot plates of chicken fried steak, pot roast, and rib-eye steaks accompanied by a choice of three vegetables from a long and inviting list. Our favorites are fragile-crusted fried okra, pork-rich pinto beans, and butter-sopped leaf spinach.

It is essential to end any meal at the Blue Bonnet with pie. About eight or ten are available every day, plain or a la mode; and while we enjoy the apple pie and pecan pie, the one we’ll come back for is the peanut butter cream. Smooth and devilishly rich, topped with a thick ribbon of white cream, it is accompanied by a small paper cup full of chocolate sauce to either pour on or use as a dip for each forkful: an inspired condiment!

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Posted By Bill Liles on January 2, 2005 10:17 AM

Although I live in Houston, we have property near Marble Falls, Texas and eat at the Bluebonnet everytime we're there. They have been in business since 1930. It is legendary. If you look up Chicken Fried Steak in the dictionary, there is a picture of the Bluebonnet Cafe by the definition. I always get sides of mashed potatoes, seasoned spinach and fried okra. With cream gravy, of course. Perfect batter and fork tender. They have a different special every day. The chicken and dumplings and the TexMex platter are good bets. And the crispy fried catfish filets are delicious. Hell, its all good. Their home made pies and cakes are also wonderful.

But my favorite meal to eat at the Bluebonnet is breakfast. I have two eggs over easy, home made carmelized hash browns, a chicken fried steak and cream gravy with Texas toast. Grits are also available. Now that's the way to start the day. Get there early as the locals and many Hill Country travelers on day road trips make it a morning destination and there will be a line out the door. But it moves fairly quickly. No matter if there is a wait, it worth it. Cash only. But prices are reasonable averaging about $8 per person.

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Posted By Steve Nussbaum on July 2, 2003 4:31 PM

This is the lunch stop on the back road alternate to I-35 between Dallas and San Antonio. The Blue Bonnet Cafe is what Black Eyed Pea set out to be, and never reaches. The food is mostly outstanding, and the place has fantastic local color. Avoid any low-fat, low-cal items, though; they are usually bland. This is a place to splurge. Other items of note are homemade giant yeast rolls and jalapeno cornbread muffins. We've had the burgers, chicken fried steaks, fried catfish, and most of the veggies, with flat green beans a standout.

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