Restaurants in Lawton

In 1926, a Mexican immigrant named Adelaida Cuellar—now affectionately referred to as "Mama"—set up a tiny stand at a county fair outside Dallas, selling homemade tamales and chili con queso. The spicy specialties soon drew throngs of hungry patrons, and by 1940, she and her 12 children had transformed the stand into a café. Today, her legacy lives on at El Chico's many locations, where the staff rolls fresh tortillas into steaming enchiladas and salts the rims of towering margaritas. Waiters hoist platters of Tex-Mex favorites such as spicy beef burritos, crispy tacos, and guacamole prepared right at the table from fresh, self-puréeing avocados—a technology Mama never could have imagined during the early days of black-and-white tomatoes.

Jo's pizzas are always made in house from fresh ingredients, customized to each customer's specifications, and baked in a flaming inferno of fiery pizza-love. Jo's offers four sizes of pizza to satisfy the hunger of rapidly expanding stomach collectives—10 inch, 12 inch, 14 inch, and 16 inch. Choose any of Jo's 27 toppings to play a pizza solo ($8.95, $12.95, $15.95, $19.95), or go straight for one of Jo's famous specials ($11.95, $16.95, $20.95, $25.95). Devour the meatlessly beefy veggie special (olive oil and garlic sauce, spinach, artichoke hearts, kalamata olives, sun-dried tomatoes, and mushrooms) or eat an appropriate Sooner (red sauce with bacon, chicken, sausage, hamburger, pepperoni, Italian sausage, and hot-link slices). For a surprise, get the Gift and turn any pizza on the menu or of your imaginative creation into a small, medium, large, or extra-large calzone, proving that you can have your pie and fold it over into a calzone too. Wash it all down, or just pour a soda over your meal beforehand, with a soft drink (kids $1, adults $1.95).

Tin ceilings hover above the weathered plaster and brick walls of Two Olives Café, whose rustic, old-world character is bolstered by exposed ventilation pipes that run the length of the room. The founder of the café, Tricia Henderson, designed the room to reflect the history of the area, mounting black-and-white photographs to offer guests a more explicit glimpse into the past.

In the kitchen, chefs lace fresh chicken salad with apples, grapes, and almonds, giving it a sweet, tart crunch that makes it the most popular sandwich on the menu and the expected winner of next year's prom court. Ham, salami, and olive salad stack the muffaletta sandwich, and housemade chipotle dressing adds a subtle smokiness to the otherwise classic caesar salad.

Cooking was always LaDonna Andeel's passion, but when she opened LD's Specialties & Gourmet Cafe in January 2009, it became her business as well. Now, she spends her days doing what she loves: baking fresh quiche, crafting gourmet sandwiches to pair with pots of fragrant tea, and getting to know the patrons who stop by. She also bakes specialty desserts for private events held in her café or at offsite locations. For children's parties, LaDonna brings out a castle backdrop, pintsize tables draped with shimmering pink or powder-blue tablecloths, and other whimsical decorations.

Cooks bustle about the kitchens of Tulio's Mexican Restaurant, stuffing flautas with juicy morsels of skinless white-meat chicken and marinating strips of sirloin steak. The beef soaks in its bath of spices for a full 24 hours before it’s deemed ready for fajitas al carbon and mexican steak-tip dinners, a slow but necessary process that typifies the restaurant’s concern for getting traditional Mexican recipes right.

Though they share certain ingredients in common, there’s no mistaking the difference between a giant burrito—stuffed with up to five pounds of meat or piñata candy—and light entrees such as veggie fajitas with steamed rice and ranchera beans. Whether sautéing peppers or deep-frying chimichangas, the cooks keep an eye on heart health and use only 100% vegetable oil. Fresh produce goes into dishes such as the Cancun chicken, whose sweet bell peppers and guacamole-celery hot sauce make for more green than a bank vault filled with lime jello.

Inside the sturdy environs of Old Germany Restaurant, visitors are surrounded by German-eatery traditions in everything from the food to the beer steins. NewsOK profiled German transplant Mike Turek and his sister Jutta Wolff, who moved to America in 1974, but have maintained their home country’s customs by masterminding an annual Oktoberfest celebration and greeting each other in the morning with a hearty “Fahrvergnügen!” Their menu is dominated by specialties of pork and veal schnitzel as well as sausages such as cevapcici—housemade beef sausages—bratwurst, and knackwurst.

The restaurant’s authentic trappings include an extensive selection of German wines and beers. Rieslings dominate the wine list, which is divided into five distinct winemaking regions of Germany. On tap are drafts of Bitburger, Hofbräu, and Warsteiner brews, from pilsners to the original König Ludwig Weissbier. Patrons can swig their drinks while bellying up to a stone bar or while sitting at a booth beneath twining faux-grapevines. A new addition to the restaurant known as Turek's Tavern gives sports fans some upscale digs overflowing with beer, wine, spirits, and German food. Televisions display sports games both inside the tavern and out on the patio, where electric shades, a mister system, and heating lamps keep athletic devotees comfortable as the seasons turn.