Tip Top Cafe

Was here about a week ago. Hadn't been in years.

Had the chicken fried steak with baked potato and salad with ranch. Also had onions rings. They are great! The person I was with had fish. There was an issue with it, so we traded it for a burger, no issue. The burger was really good.

This place is way better than I remember, plus the prices are very reasonable and the staff friendly. I'll be back soon.

Tried the chocolate meringue pie, which is very good.

Had lunch here on my way through San Antonio specifically because someone had them recommended for chicken fried steak. Their CFS was well tenderized, but crust was a little plentiful for my taste. And was served over gravy! Now, the gravy was very tasty with good consistency, but served beneath the CFS with no question as to preference was different. The service and speed of order fulfillment was great. The ambiance is nothing special, as this is old-school diner complete with juke boxes at the booths. The clientele was mainly older and non-demanding.

In conclusion, although I enjoyed the CFS, not sure that it would be on my list of best chicken fried steak in Texas.

Great food. Good service. One of the best hamburgers I have ever had.
Amazing onion rings

This staple restaurant never lets me down. I've been coming here for years. Food is always delicious great small town diner feeling. Our server was great. Oh and the onion rings are fire!!!

Loved the chopped sirloin steak special for $10.99! Scrumptious onion rings and fried okra. Really nice servers in a quaint historic setting!

Wow! I am certainly losing my respect for some reviews. I sat and read through so many not so great reviews for this restaurant that I was a little nervous about going there today with my retirement group for our monthly luncheon. One of our group mentioned it last month and raved about how good it was. I hadn't been in several years, but remembered it fondly.

We had a reservation for 15 people at 1:30 PM. My friend Ann and I were the first to arrive at about 1:10. Sure enough, there sat our table in the middle of the dining room taking up a huge chunk of the available seating. The others trickled in over the next 20 - 30 minutes until we had a group of 14 crowded around the table jumping into conversations about anything but school.

Our server, Monica, took our orders, answering a plethora of questions as she went. I remember several of them: three chicken fried steaks, 1 chicken salad sandwich, 1 hamburger, 1 tilapia sandwich, two BLT's, 1 pork chop plate, and one frito pie. I don't remember the others. Everyone said their food was very good. I know that my fish sandwich was second only to one I had in Key West a few years back.

After reading comments about the salads being stale with yellow or brown soggy lettuce, I ordered a dinner salad to check for myself. It was absolutely fresh and crisp. It was definitely chilled. The blue cheese dressing was very good with huge chunks of blue cheese in it.

About half of the people with me took to go boxes home with them. The servings were huge. My fish was so big and thick that I suspected that they might have substituted something for the tilapia. The pork chops were about an inch thick. The two of them filled up the plate to the point that I thought my friend had ordered a huge steak. The chicken fried steaks were hanging off the edges of the plates. I wish I had a ruler to measure them. They looked like they were about one foot long and eight inches wide. Way too much for most people to eat in one sitting.

Sadly, I am trying to reduce my food consumption (I'm on a Pre-Pandemic Pushback Plan) so I didn't even consider getting pie. Neither did anyone else. We simply had too much food for that.

Please do yourself a favor and look past the negative reviews for Tip Top. Based on our meal today, I truly believe things have been worked out, and the restaurant is back to the quality of its heyday. A lot of places struggled with kitchen staff during the Pandemic. Perhaps that can account for the rough spot mentioned in the bad reviews.

This was one of our nicest lunches in a long time. I had the Chicken Fried Steak with brown gravy, mashed potatoes, a garden salad, and unsweet tea.

There was nothing to complain about and everything to praise. BTW (by the way, if you don't know what it means) the brown gravy on the CFS comes UNDER the steak, not on top of it. I was curious about that at first, but was happy when i figured out that that was to keep me out of the splash zone when I cut the meat.

The diner was cool (summer here), clean, and not overly crowded. We also had a helping of the appetizer award winning onion rings and they were great and they were gigantic. I'd have been happy to get a 12 size, but we loved what we got.

Lastly: I never take a doggie bag. Ever. Today. I took a doggie bag and this will be my supper.

Note: Oh, Hello Carol B. :)

Great Food, Great Service , Great Deserts . It's been a landmark in San Antonio...
A Must to visit and enjoy a meal..

Chicken fried steak was so good big serving mashe potatoes were well seasoned. Macaroni is nice and creamy. The sampler platter was amazing onion rings tenders and fried mushrooms were all good and plentiful.

The food is really good, old school diner food. The portions are HUGE! Try to save room for a slice of pie!! The pies are delicious and HUGE as well! Great value for the money and good food!