Play With Your Food

The best kid-friendly Austin restaurants that parents will love too

Twisted Root Burger Co in Austin with putt putt course

Twisted Root Burger Co even has mini golf onsite.

School's out for the summer, which leads many parents to start thinking about new spots to eat out with the kids. We've gathered a list of some of the best restaurants around town for families, where adults and children can have an equally good time.

These places make it easy for parents to chill, while keeping an eye on the kids (who will be kept busy by the cool stuff meant just for them). Whether you discover a new favorite or remember a restaurant you haven't been to in a while, these places make family time easy — and fun.

Austin's Pizza
The Westlake location of this local chain has a really great playground — and a big plus is that it's BYOB. Folks with young kids regularly meet here for happy hour or dinner. The pizza is pretty good too.

Central Market
This is a stand-by for families. There is a cafe; plenty of outdoor seating on the deck, upstairs, and yard areas; and a large playground. You can also buy beverages inside the store for grocery (not restaurant) prices, do some shopping while you're there, and enjoy live music several nights a week. Central Market also puts on a lot of community events, many aimed for children.

El Mercado
The south location of this longtime Tex-Mex favorite has a "hidden" playground out back that many people don't know about, complete with a fort and slides. The outdoor space is nice (and dog-friendly), and they also have live music pretty much every evening.

Mandola's Italian Market
This casual restaurant at the Triangle is a go-to family spot, with a playscape and lots of outdoor seating. Kids also get a free gelato, and Mandola's offers prepared Italian comfort food, plus a small grocery market with a nice selection.

Midway Food Park
This large food trailer park has a lot of offerings, from Dock & Roll seafood and Taconmaye Mexican food to Revolution vegan barbecue. There is a huge playground onsite, plenty of tables with umbrellas, a fire pit, and frequent live music. Oh, and did we mention the Cheesecake Experience truck? Yum.

Napa Flats
The West Austin location of this pizza joint has a playscape and a fun additional benefit for kids: they are given dough and can make their own personal pizzas. If you have a picky eater, allowing them to help cook works magic.

North by Northwest Restaurant & Brewery
The newer south location of this brewpub, next to the Alamo Drafthouse on Slaughter Lane, recently added a full playscape for kids. With their own German-style beer and food that's above-average for a brewery/restaurant, this is a good option for combining dinner and a movie (if you don't want to eat at the Drafthouse) or just a night out. Frequent live bands and other events are on the calendar as well.

Phil’s Ice House
Could there be a better combination for kids than burgers and ice cream? All three Phil's locations are next door to Amy's Ice Creams and feature full playgrounds. One caveat worth mentioning is that Phil's does not offer an actual kid's burger or meal, but everything can be made to order. They make up for it, however, with "Parent's Recess," a daily happy hour on beer and wine from 3 to 5:30 pm.

Rebel Pizza Bar
This fun spot in North Central Austin is located above Suzi's Chinese Kitchen and has a second-story covered patio with a play area and bocce ball. The wood-fired pizza is great (available by the pie or the slice), and there is pasta on the menu too. A full bar and local brews will keep the adults refreshed, and there are early (4 to 6 pm) and late (9 pm to close) happy hours daily.

Twisted Root Burger Co.
The family draw at this Burnet Road burger spot is the mini-golf course onsite. But the burgers are also seriously gourmet and delicious, with a specialty in exotic meats including venison, elk, ostrich, boar, and even camel at times. Vegetarians won't go hungry either, with a house-made chickpea patty.

Many other restaurants around town have a playground or playscape area:

Fresa's on South First Street
Flores Mexican Restaurant on William Cannon Drive
Silver Grill Cafe on Parmer Lane
Nutty Brown Cafe
Ski Shores Cafe
Torchy's Tacos Anderson Mill
Doc's Backyard
Hat Creek Burgers
Casa de Luz (playground open after 6 pm)

kids families ice-cream pizza dinner lunch

Whoops

Michelin goofs on a few restaurants honored in first Texas guide

Kau Ba/Facebook

Houston's Kau Ba has been removed from the Michelin Guide.

Texans' reactions to the first Michelin Guide in the state have ranged from glowing to unimpressed, but a few notable mix-ups are more concrete than differences in taste. The November 11 ceremony honored more than 100 restaurants across the state, but at least two were in error. In Dallas the guide confused two restaurants with each other, and in Houston one of them had closed.

Starting in Dallas: The Guide's release announcing the list of restaurants who'd won awards included The Charles, an award-winning Italian restaurant in Dallas' Design District, as one of 57 restaurants that earned a "Recommended" rating.

The Charles is a surely deserving restaurant that opened in 2018, the first concept from acclaimed food & beverage group Duro Hospitality, which has since gone on to open other restaurants such as El Carlos Elegante, Sister, and Cafe Duro.

But the Guide got the wrong Charles: The real recipient was Mister Charles, a sibling Duro Hospitality restaurant that opened at 3219 Knox St. in early 2024.

The Charles specializes in Italian and Texas-inspired dishes.

Mister Charles features French and Italian-influenced dishes.

It wasn't just an incorrect name; it listed the accompanying (incorrect) address.

A spokesperson for Michelin Guide verified that Mister Charles was the winner and said that the listing of The Charles was a mistake.

“This was an internal error caused by our geolocation process. The problem will be corrected in the most expeditious manner,” the spokesperson said. The Guide website has since updated the list and replaced The Charles with Mister Charles.

Having a difference of opinion about a critic's choices is one thing — but having an error of this magnitude is something else entirely.

And blaming "geolocation" as the source of the error is a curious excuse. Geolocation refers to the ability to track the whereabouts of an electronic device using GPS, cell phone towers, WiFi access points or a combination of these.

The Houston mix-up was also disappointing, but only involved one restaurant: In a press release issued Thursday, November 14, the Guide announced that it had removed Montrose Vietnamese restaurant Kau Ba from the list of Bib Gourmand recipients.

The reason: "Upon further investigation, our team has discovered the restaurant has been permanently closed since our Inspection team's visits occurred," the statement reads.

As has been widely noted in local media, Kau Ba closed earlier this month. The restaurant’s Instagram account now belongs to Alora, which is described as “a fresh Peruvian-Vietnamese fusion concept inspired by travels to Saigon.” It is expected to open soon.

Open since 2018, Kau Ba served an innovative take on Vietnamese fare created by Nikki Tran. The restaurant built on the notoriety Tran had achieved after being featured in two Netflix series: Somebody Feed Phil and Ugly Delicious. It earned considerable acclaim, including a spot in the Houston Chronicle’s top 100 restaurants as recently as 2023 and a nomination for Best Neighborhood Restaurant in the 2021 CultureMap Tastemaker Awards.

The restaurant went through a number of iterations during its tenure. For three-and-a-half years, Tran partnered with Aya Sushi owners Minette Corpuz and Bruce Kish to oversee operations, but they parted ways in February 2023.

In an email sent to Houston Public Media, Tran expressed regret over Michelin's decision.

“But we understand and respect Michelin’s decision to remove Kau Ba from its selection,” Tran said to HPM. “Exercising an abundance of caution from a legal position, I am not able currently to share further details of our situation but I do hope to follow up soon with more information.”

“Until then, on behalf of the entire Kau Ba team, we want to thank the entire culinary community for the recognition and support,” Tran added. “Kau Ba is proud of the dishes we created and look forward to sharing very soon what’s next.”

Thankfully in Austin, things seem to be going okay. The capital city swept the competition with seven stars (one more than Houston now that the change has been made), and two green stars for sustainability — in fact, the only green stars in the state.

Austin also had four of the first-ever barbecue restaurants to be awarded stars. Houston also had one.

Austin's winning restaurants were Barley Swine, Craft Omakase, Hestia, Olamaie, InterStellar BBQ, John Bates, La Barbecue, Alison Clem, and LeRoy and Lewis Barbecue.

michelin guide awards