When you’re in Victoria, all you have to do is pick up the paper to hold a piece of history in your hands. If you’re not in town in spring, no problem: Just grab the historic homes tour brochure from the local visitor center and take a self-guided driving tour around town. You can visit many of the buildings through Victoria Preservation’s Historic Homes Tour, a 30-year-strong spring tradition where you can walk Victoria’s historic districts and learn about the rich history and architecture of the city. Greek Revival, Southern Colonial, Italianate - there are myriad styles on display. Founded in 1824, of course Victoria has historic buildings. It’s in the name (an homage to the first president of independent Mexico, General Guadalupe Victoria, not the former Queen of England). The city has 115 buildings on the National Register of Historic Places. Come instead for the Reubens, homemade soups, and the Dutch lunch - cheese, cold cuts, and bread with spicy mustard (an old family recipe). Yes, it’s table service, but you don’t come here for an anniversary dinner. Opened in 1882 by Frank Napoleon Fossati and still owned and operated by the founding family, deli legend has it that in 1932 Bonnie and Clyde burst through the doors, threw back a couple beers, then ran out. Set in a restored 1800s building in the center of the historic downtown, Fossati’s (pronounced feh-SEH’-tee) isn’t just the oldest deli in Texas, it’s one of the oldest restaurants in the US. You can dine at the oldest deli in the state. They’re used for community meetings as well as for music and dance, and they’ve always been diverse by nature, exposing visitors to a range of music genres and encouraging the development of new music styles like conjunto. With origins in Texas’s German, Czech, Polish, Tejano, and African-American cultures, dance halls are a Lone Star hallmark. No mistake, this is a venue with a lot of history - Willie Nelson and Fats Domino have played here, as have Tejano greats like Little Joe and Sunny and the Sunliners. On the banks of the Guadalupe River, locals have been gliding across the giant dance floor at Club Westerner since 1929. It’s home to one of Texas’s oldest dance halls. This year, the party takes place September 30 and October 1. In its sixth year, this is a festival where you’ll get to see some of Texas country music’s best artists - think Kevin Fowler and Charlie Robison - for free.ĭuring the event, there’s an entire street dedicated to the country’s best barbecue vendors a car, truck, and motorcycle show the Bootfest 5k the largest game party in the Coastal Bend - with an A&M or UT college football game shown on huge outdoor screens in the plaza - and a grand finale fireworks show come Saturday night. There’s more to Texas than barbecue and country music even so, Victoria’s two-day Bootfest celebrates both in a big way. There’s a massive music festival here every fall. In 2015 the festival brought renowned street artists Ron English and RISK to the city to paint over 50,000 square feet of downtown wall space. Some of the biggest names in street art have made their mark on the city. In 2015, it was named by MovieMaker Magazine as one of “50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee,” right up there with some of the biggest names on the circuit. Having just wrapped its sixth year, VTXIFF draws artists from all over the world to downtown Victoria to celebrate, champion, and inspire independent artists and filmmakers at every level. It puts on an acclaimed indie film festival every year. At Quality Packers Smokehouse, the slow-cooked brisket is prepared in the same smoker used half a century ago over at Mumphord’s Place BBQ, Ricky Mumphord cooks his meats directly over a combination of mesquite and oak wood.įood Traveler magazine agrees that Victoria’s where it’s at, including the Great Coastal Texas Barbecue Trail in its roundup of America’s Best BBQ scenes. Better than the barbecue trails in Mississippi and Arkansas, better than the ones in North Carolina and Austin…better than all of ‘em.Įight mom-and-pop barbecue joints are showcased on the trail, and every one of them is different. In fact, according to averaged online reviews, Victoria’s Great Coastal Texas Barbecue Trail is the best in the country. It’s home to the best barbecue trail in Texas.
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