The Best Restaurants in Mineola, Texas

The Dallas Observer drove out here and filed a piece on it, which is more outside attention than any other kitchen in Wood County gets. The restaurant has held this space since 1984, in a building dating to 1896, and The East Texas Weekend called it the oldest dining spot in town in May 2026. The burgers are made with locally raised, farm raised beef, and there is a Hearty Homestyle side of the menu with chicken fried steak on it.

The room is the other half of the appeal. Hundreds of decorated paper napkins left by previous customers are pinned across the walls, and the original fittings are largely intact. It also publishes the most reliable hours in Mineola, including the only Sunday service on this list.

Texas Monthly has it in the barbecue listings, and it carries the best review record in Mineola, around 4.5 to 4.6 across roughly 280 ratings on two platforms. The items reviewers name over and over are the brisket, the rib candy, the smoked turkey and the poblano mac and cheese. Street taco style tacos turn up on a weekday special.

The taproom half is not decoration. A February 2025 reviewer counted about nine taps plus cans, which is a genuinely unusual beer list for a town this size, and it is the only place on this list where you would sit and drink after eating.

W.D. Kitchens started this business in 1899, first as a cafe operator and then as a hardware merchant selling wagons and buggies, and KLTV reported that the deli and the hardware store have shared the building ever since. Texas Monthly describes the menu as unusually expansive for a town known for burgers and antiques. Reviewers come back to the pies and the bread pudding.

Lesley Holloway, a Mineola native who worked in the building from 1993 to 1997, bought it in November 2024 and told KETK she wanted to keep it Kitchens. She has been updating the hardware side and the kitchen and talking about more local sourcing. Review scores are the most mixed on this list, around 3.3 on Yelp against 4.6 on a smaller sample elsewhere, which is why it is third rather than first.

Val's is the only kitchen in Mineola that publishes its own menu with prices, which makes it the easiest place in town to plan around. New York style pies start at 14 dollars for cheese, the deep dish Sicilians run 19 to 24, baked ziti and lasagna are 12.95, chicken parmigiana is 16.95 and there is a ribeye at 27.95.

It is part of a small East Texas family group with sister restaurants in Canton and Chandler, so it is not a one off, and it is the only Italian option in Wood County worth naming. Takeaway and order ahead run through Slice rather than a house system.

Logan's carries a deep and consistently high review record, between 4.5 and 4.9 depending on platform and sample, across 125 to 247 ratings. In a town of about 4,500 people that is a real signal. The items customers name are the ribeye steak sandwich, a bacon avocado burger and a buffalo chicken wrap.

We rank it fifth rather than higher for one reason, which is that we could not find a single piece of independent writing about it, no website and no phone number we were willing to print. Everything above it has a newspaper, a magazine or its own site behind it.

The format is the reason to go. Paredes runs a buffet with a Tex-Mex line, a Southern comfort food line, and a salad and dessert bar, with table service and a menu available for anyone who does not want the buffet. There is nothing else like it in Wood County.

It is last on this list because the sourcing is the thinnest. It holds a long standing Tripadvisor listing and turns up in directories at this address, but the only descriptive writing we found about it reads like promotional copy, so we are reporting the format and not the verdict.