About this tour
Long before San Antonio had a single Tex-Mex restaurant, it had the Chili Queens — women, many of them Tejanas, who set up tables, portable stoves, and coal-oil lanterns on Military Plaza every evening and sold bowls of chili con carne, tamales, and enchiladas to anyone who wandered by. Traveling writers wrote them up as one of the must-see spectacles of the city; locals just called it dinner. This short walk follows the plaza where it all happened, past the Spanish government buildings the stands set up beside, and on to a saloon-turned-museum that carries the same curio-and-cuisine spirit into the present day.