Vegan in San Antonio – The Alamo, Riverwalk, & more!
Despite living in Dallas off and on for 12 years now, I had never visited San Antonio! I’ve heard great things about The Alamo and the Riverwalk, but had never made it down there. I play in a band (The Culper Ring) and we had a Friday night show down there, so Carly and I decided to stay the night and use Saturday to explore some iconic Texas destinations! Of course, we came with a gameplan to check out some of the local vegan restaurants, and they did not disappoint!
Friday Night Dinner – Blissful Burgers
I left Dallas at 10am with the band and barely ate all day in anticipation of dinner at Blissful Burgers. The band stopped for dinner at a local taco shop, but it didn’t have anything vegan other than chips and guac, and I decided to hold out and save room so I could try a few things at Blissful Burgers (I’m glad I did!). After setting up soundcheck, I took the band van and drove over to check it out! It’s in a non-descript plaza, and the interior is sparsely decorated, but there is plenty of seating. I get the vibe more people get takeout or delivery (from a 3rd-party delivery app such as DoorDash) than dine in. But you absolutely could and it would be just fine. It’s just not a “fine dining” experience. You go there for the amazing food, not the ambiance.
The best part is, the menu is 100% vegan! It’s a variety of burger options, made with Beyond Burger but pressed into a flatter Steak & Shake style patty, and cooked with their own seasoning. It is definitely better and more flavorful than a regular Beyond Burger. They also have some chicken-fried steak sandwiches, fried mushrooms, fried pickles, chili cheese fries, milkshakes, and even a kids menu. I ordered online before driving over, which I would recommend because everything is made to order and there can be a bit of a wait. But if there is, the wait is so worth it.
I got the patty melt, the Bhilly, and the fried mushrooms with ranch. All three were incredible. The patty melt was unreal – it reminds me of the patty melt from Project Pollo (an incredible chick-fil-a-like chain that closed a year ago). I really wish we had a vegan patty melt like that in Dallas (although it’s certainly better for my waistline that we don’t). The Bhilly was also really good. It almost reminded me more of a Philly cheesesteak than a burger, with the grilled pepper and onions. And the fried mushrooms are more nugget-sized than the sometimes tiny, stringy fried mushrooms I’ve had at other places. They come with a house-made ranch which is incredible.
I did my best not to eat it all to share with Carly later (she drove down separate), and headed back to the venue to play the show!
Carly arrived just in time for the show, and as soon as we finished we headed out to the van so she could try what was left (the silver lining of our brutal Texas heat is you can leave a bag of food in your car and it’ll still be warm when you eat it a few hours later…). Her reactions were pretty much the same as mine – each bite of the next item was met with “woooow!”. When we go back to San Antonio, we are definitely going to Blissful Burgers again! They do deliver, so even if you’re staying at a hotel and don’t want to drive over, it’s worth checking out.
Staying at the Hyatt Riverwalk
We stayed at the Hyatt on the Riverwalk, but did not get much time to explore, and due to the late night nature of band shows, we didn’t get in until after 1am. We slept in a bit, and since we had brunch plans, did not explore the Hyatt breakfast options. However, we did grab coffee at the cafe and noticed they had fruit cups and some other options.
The Hyatt wasn’t that expensive compared to other hotels in the area and is right on the river, so you could easily just walk down to the Riverwalk from there! At night, it’s beautifully lit up and would make for a romantic evening stroll. It’s also just a few minutes of a walk to The Alamo. Next time, if I was planning to make a day out of exploring and visiting the riverwalk, I would definitely stay here. The only thing to consider is the $47 overnight parking fee (per day) for guests ($69 for non-guests). However, you are likely to need to pay for parking anywhere down here if you want to visit The Alamo or the Riverwalk, so the fact that you can wake up and walk to either item makes this a place worth considering.
Below is our Google Maps shared map of all the places listed in this trip. As you can see, everything apart from Blissful Burgers is all downtown, and everything except Vegan Avenue is walkable!
Sat AM: Vegan Brunch at Vegan Avenue on Main
After grabbing a cup of cold brew from the Hyatt cafe, we hopped in the car and made the quick 9 minute drive to Vegan Avenue on Main! It’s a cute little restaurant (all vegan, as the name implies), with a full menu that has something for everyone. They have everything from breakfast/brunch foods (including mexican style plates and more traditional items like french toast), grain bowls, salads, burgers, po’ boys, cauliflower wings…you should just check out the menu. They also have a kids menu. Everything looked incredible and it was so hard to choose.
We opted for the chilaquiles (server’s recommendation), which is a Mexican-style breakfast plate of mushrooms, greens, beans, onions, avocado slices cheese, and we added the Just Egg per his recommendation. It was a lot of food and was delicious.
We also got the berry cream french toast, which absolutely crushed. I love french toast, but egg is obviously the item that precludes it when visiting most non-vegan brunch places. This one absolutely crushed it, and the cream frosting was a unique twist. I was a little unsure of it, because I’m a simple pancakes & syrup guy, so berries + cream + a cream icing instead of syrup seemed a bit much. It was not. It was perfect.
The wildest part is that the bread was gluten free, which I did not even know until Carly and I were talking with the server and she mentioned how she couldn’t tell. I did not believe her, saying it was too good to be gluten free, and maybe the menu just meant it could be made gluten free with a different bread on request. We clarified, and he said everything on the menu was not only vegan, but also gluten free! My mind is still blow. Whatever bread they use absolutely fooled me.
Carly also got the sweet cream cold brew, which puts Starbucks’ version to shame. It was delicious. I opted to try the house drip coffee, which was also very good and paired perfectly with french toast.
Overall, it’s a very cute restaurant with a patio (with umbrellas and fans!), and an amazing menu that is perfect for those with unique dietary preferences. I really appreciate that, not only is the whole menu vegan and gluten free, they also denote dishes with other potential allergens such as soy, coconut, etc. This restaurant is a must-visit for anyone with unique dietary needs.
Visiting The Alamo!
After wrapping up brunch, we hopped in the car for the short drive back downtown to check out The Alamo! The craziest thing about The Alamo, to me, is smack dab in the middle of downtown. In my mind, it’s an old timey ranch that belongs out in the country (what the area originally was…), but it’s surrounded by all these modern day buildings. Of course, it was here first and everything else built up around it. But still, it just threw me for a loop being located downtown!
You can walk around the grounds of The Alamo for free, but if you want to enter the chapel (the iconic Alamo building), you’ll need a ticket. Tickets are affordable, at $14/person, and you can upgrade to an audio tour for another $6 ($20/person total). That gets you a little mp3 player on a lanyard that you can use to learn more about some of the different spots around the complex. Fair warning – you do need a set of wired headphones/earbuds to make use of this. I just assumed they would provide some, so I had to run back to the car to grab some we keep stashed in our bags.
Personally, I listened to a few of the tracks but then didn’t use the mp3 player the rest of the visit. There were plenty of placards to read that were informative, and I just didn’t find the narrated clips that informative or interesting. They were all pretty short. I think there were about 35 tracks and the attendants said it’s about 45 minutes worth of audio, so each track is only 1-1.5 minutes long…not a lot of info per track. Next time, I’d skip the audio tour and save the $6 to put towards a sweet cream cold brew at Vegan Avenue :D. Although, I did see some walking tours that seemed to be worth it if you’re really interested in learning about the history. I could overhear the guides and they seemed to be sharing lots of cool info.
The chapel itself was quite cool (both literally and figuratively). It was very hot outside and stepping into the chapel provided some nice relief. There were cool artifacts and it was really neat to step into such a storied piece of history. There is a line that leads into a small room where they have a brief video presentation that delves into the history and the discovery of the Sacristy. That was pretty cool and informative.
PHOTO TIP: No flash photography is allowed inside the chapel, but you are otherwise allowed to take pictures. I actually left my main camera in the car because I had heard you couldn’t bring photography equipment, which is not true. Just no flash photography inside the chapel.
WATER TIP: No food or drink is allowed inside The Alamo, so you should leave your water bottle in the car. However, they do have some vending machines with various beverages outside the gift shop, so you can still hydrate before/after going in the chapel.
We also visited the Alamo Exhibit in the Ralson Family Collections Center (henceforth abbreviated as RFCC…), and this was actually my favorite part of the visit (you do need a ticket to get in, but admission is also included in your ticket to visit the chapel). While the rest of the visit and tour of the grounds and chapel felt a little crowded, the RFCC felt much more relaxed. It’s air conditioned (which is a huge plus when visiting in August…), and has restrooms. The best part is the collection of artifacts – it’s basically a mini museum with tons of cool artifacts from the history of The Alamo, including guns, canons, canonballs, clothing, pocket bibles, flasks, etc. from notable historical characters. As an American, this was super cool, because we just don’t have that much history going back that far. And most of what we might see from that long ago is in the Smithsonian or other museums around Washington, D.C. To have something like that here in Texas was super cool and felt really special.
After cooling off and soaking in as much of the history as we could, we headed to the Riverwalk, but not before stopping at Voodoo Doughnuts for a quick snack!
Vegan donuts at Voodoo Doughnut in San Antonio
While Voodoo Doughnut is a chain and not a local restaurant, good vegan donuts are hard to come by in my experience, and I love donuts. Since it was practically on the way to the riverwalk, I figured I should take advantage! They have 10 vegan donut options, from basic glazed and chocolate ring options, to more fancy options including the Voodoo Doll, Old Dirty Bastard, and Vegan Dirt. They all looked incredible, but I didn’t I was quite hungry enough to take on one of those, so we opted just to get a glazed and chocolate ring. Even these were quite large, and they hit the spot.
San Antonio Riverwalk
We continued on to check out the Riverwalk, and it immediately exceeded my expectations. When I first looked it up, it looked like just one little block downtown (just looking at Google Maps). I figured it might just be a few restaurants/bars along a little creek, but was immediately blown away. One moment, you’re walking along regular streets downtown, then you descend a flight of stairs and it’s like you’ve teleported into this lush, green, energetic underworld.
There were bands playing, people walking around, riverboat tours floating by, and tons of cute restaurants and bars with patio seating to soak it all in. It was largely shaded with lots of trees – a stark contrast to the brutal sun bearing down on the streets above. And as we walked and explored, it appeared to just keep going with plenty to see and do! We grabbed a drink at Rita’s on the River, which was our first food/drink letdown of the trip. Notably, this is not a vegan restaurant. In fact, the only vegan food option on the menu was chips & guac. Granted, I saw it at another patron’s table and it looked good and was a large serving of guac. We got a classic margarita and a virgin margarita. The classic margarita was just OK, but nothing special. They do have a selection of relatively inventive margaritas, and maybe that’s the move there. But we were not impressed with the regular margarita. I was glad they had non-alcoholic options, and the virgin margarita was decent.
We found the bridge featured in Miss Congeniality (some sort of kiss? I haven’t seen the movie…I supposed I need to watch it now!), which Carly seemed to appreciate and is a common stop when visiting.
We did peek at many of the restaurant menus along the way and saw that the Iron Cactus has a vegan taco that looked solid. Many of the other menus did not seem to have specifically vegan options, so kudos to the Iron Cactus for having a dedicated menu option!
I am sure you could make do at many of the other restaurants and find something suitable given the number of restaurants on the riverwalk, but I wouldn’t rate the area as particularly vegan friendly. What I’d recommend instead is…
Dinner at Plantaqueria!
Plantaqueria is just a short walk from the Riverwalk up on street level and is a fully vegan taco restaurant! It’s also just a few minutes from The Alamo. We were so glad to be back in the air conditioning, and immediately ordered an agua fresca to cool off. They have several house-made agua frescas that all sounded delicious, and we opted for the pepino limon.
We ordered the la lucha breakfast taco and elote en vaso to start, with birria tacos to finish it. Our favorite was the la lucha breakfast taco – it has soy chorizo, seasoned potatoes, vegan egg, and cheese. It’s a decently loaded taco and pretty filling. Sometimes it’s hard to tell how many to order when they sell them one taco at a time. I wouldn’t say one taco is a meal, but I’m also not getting 3 tacos plus a side and a main. 2-3 tacos would be quite filling.
The elote en vaso was a close second. The corn was sweet and the mayo/sauce added a nice richness, while the herbs added a nice freshness.
The birria tacos were good, but almost too rich. Granted, I also had birria tacos at Case Del Vegano in Dallas and found those “too rich” as well, which means maybe I just don’t like birria tacos! I never really had birria tacos before being vegan, so maybe these are a good re-creation and how it’s supposed to be. I just found the “meat” and cheese and lack of veggies to be a little too much. I wish there were a little more peppers and onion to balance it out and provide a little more freshness, but if you like really rich meaty/cheesy flavors, I bet you’d enjoy this.
Overall, I’d definitely come here again and explore the rest of the menu, because it all looked pretty amazing.
Final thoughts on San Antonio for Vegans
Dallas has a really good vegan scene and I feel like we have a pretty high bar as a result, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. The fact that we were able to enjoy not just 3 amazing vegan meals, but patronize 3 entirely vegan establishments in our 24-hour visit without driving all over the place was pretty awesome. When it comes to exploring restaurants, it’s not too uncommon to leave being glad I went, but also looking forward to exploring new places the next time I visit. However, these were all so good that I’m going to have a hard time branching out and trying new places because I know I’ll be missing out on something so good at all three of these restaurants! Plus they all had so many options on the menu that we didn’t get to try that looked amazing.
Overall, I am pretty impressed with the vegan options in San Antonio! I can’t wait for another excuse to visit.
If you have any recommendations of other vegan food we should try, we’d love to hear your recommendations! Message us on Instagram @veganvacationguide or use the contact form here on the website!
