Gyro plate at Tinos Greek Cafe (photo by John Anderson)
Welcome to The Strip Club, highlighting Austin’s destination strip malls. Where else can you eat a gyro while your teen gets a facial? Smash a burger after ditching your grandma? Get high, spin some pasta, then adopt a cat?
The lowly strip mall – our new Main Street – is in peak form at Plaza 183, a place where there’s something for everyone, including your ferret.
For the adolescent, Clean Slate Waxing Lounge advertises “Back to School Teen Facials” for $79, which seems expensive. Thankfully, there’s a Wingstop and a Which Wich next door where you can economize lunch.
Eggplant Parmigiana at Reale’s Italian Cafe (photo by John Anderson)
But instead of working those chains, gang, opt for Austin original Tinos Greek Cafe, whose corner of the parking lot feels Mediterranean with flourishing thyme, sage, mint, and basil plants growing outside. Inside, Greek folk music accompanies sea-blue murals of Aegean vistas, one with the snarky quip “Family Owned & Complicated.”
At the counter, you can have your tray one of three ways: by the plate, the pita sandwich, or the salad. I order the plate, which comes with a fantastically zesty lemon chicken soup with orzo (or a Greek salad), choice of protein (gyro meat, chicken, or falafel patty), three sides (16 to choose from, including rice, lima beans, baba ghanouj, dolmathes, spanakopita, moussaka, tabouli, and hummus), and a thick, warm semolina pita. Tinos is fresh, delicious, and affordable – with no surprises. It has a homespun vibe, down to a handwritten warning on the counter reading “Olives Have Pits.” Goddamn right they do.
The garage at Tires to You emits a rubbery smell that sits like a toxic cloud in front of the Shuk, a kosher market featuring a full selection of Judaica, including a bib that says “Official Matzo Ball Taster” and an Israeli Defense Force T-shirt that makes me feel uncomfortable.
Cageless petting room at Pet Supplies Plus (photo by Taylor Holland)
For the Nonna in your life, there’s Reale’s Italian Cafe – “Your Home Away From Rome” – a trattoria owned by a family who’s been serving generous helpings of pasta classics, pizza, seafood, and gluten-free options with aaamoreee since 1981. On a Wednesday night, it’s packed tighter than a tray of cannoli as Ken “Ol’ Green Eyes” Kruse croons Sinatra tunes from a karaoke stage in the dining area.
We order martinis, and amiable owner Gino Reale appears at our table. He looks and sounds like he’s straight out of The Sopranos, and when he’s shaking my hand, puts his left hand on top of our shaking right hands – a three-hand handshake! – then leans in and explains how his grandfather came from the old country.
The bar area is alive with a gaggle of ladies from Volente Beach who are hump day regulars. One is having a birthday, complete with custom cowboy hats. After Ken sings “Happy Birthday,” they parade through the dining room laughing, making funny faces, and taking photos with strangers at their tables. It’s “Girls Gone Mild,” and Gino is loving every second of it.
We order straight down the middle: eggplant parmesan and spaghetti marinara, each accompanied by a small Caesar salad and complimentary garlic breadsticks. No notes. This is the place that stood up to the Olive Garden and won. Ristorante consigliato. Prego.
The Dipper burger at Moonie’s Burger House (photo by John Anderson)
If, after the secondi piatti, you need some time away from Nonna, feel free to drop her at Town Square Adult Enrichment Center – an elder day care center made up with fake storefronts to rekindle the 1950s. Wisdom, the enrollment manager, takes me for a spin in his DeLorean: There’s a diner, a music room to spin old records, a City Hall, a cinema showing old movies, a craft room, a classic car, and a gym. Imagine Back to the Future rebooted as an assisted living center, with activities like chair yoga, balloon tennis, charades, trivia, airplane races, and screenings of Golden Girls.
Food is at the fore in this column, and here’s one for Fido: Pet Supplies Plus has dog food fit for a French bistro – Duck and Pear, Lamb and Pumpkin, Freshwater Fish Blend, Turkey and Sardine, Chicken à la Vege, Pork and Applesauce, Steak Frites, and Jammin’ Salmon – plus a dessert case by the register with dog treats decorated like fancy cookies. Seems like overkill, but if you can afford a veterinarian, you can probably afford pooch pâtisserie. The real discovery here – aside from the “2 in 1 Ferret Bed” – is New Hope Animal Rescue, a cageless petting room in the back that has feline orphans available for adoption. Lord Purrington, Gramps, Prince Peach, and Brave Little Toaster await your affection.
What about the children?!? Catch Air, an indoor playscape that feels more like a starter casino, makes a great one-two punch with adjacent Moonie’s Burger House. At 11am on a Saturday, the place is full of parents and screaming rugrats, and the stars of the menu are the Dipper – a burger take on the French dip – and Gravy Fries that one-up traditional biscuits and gravy. But steer clear of the Greek salad, because you’re better off hitting up Gino or Tinos.
For anyone who needs to relax, there’s the 1937 Apothecary, a mother-daughter operation that makes their own CBD/THC-a products. After a long talk about the hemp bill and the differences between THC and THC-a, I decide it’s probably safer to head to the La Tapatia across the parking lot for a six-shrimp rimmed michelada with an upside-down caguama (32 oz. beer) inside of it. La buena onda.
Plaza 183
13450 U.S. Hwy. 183, Austin
