Though meals tend to bring friends together, meals peppered with magnets can push them apart. Enjoy an attractive repast with today's Groupon: for $8, you get $16 worth of casual southwestern fare and merchandise at Buddy's Backyard in New Braunfels.

Grillmasters at Buddy's Backyard form pure-beef patties, slice sea-salted fries, and handcraft hearty southwestern fare from fresh ingredients. Diners can commence meals without using starter pistols by wolfing down a starter of fried dill-pickle chips paired with chipotle-ranch dressing ($4.95). The menu stars handmade, USA Choice burgers nestled atop toasted buns, such as the Buddy burger clothed in lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, onions, and mustard ($4.95) and the Texas Queso burger, which sports an edible crown of jalapeño jack cheese and queso ($5.95). Guests in search of nonburger fare can sink jaw jewels into the Funky Chicken sandwich, which cradles marinated, grilled chicken breast, grilled mushrooms, hickory-smoked bacon, and oozes of Big Eye swiss cheese ($6.95). To accompany bites, cooks dust sweet-potato fries with cayenne pepper ($3.99) or fry sweet Texas onions coated in Shiner Bock batter ($4.99) until they achieve a perfect golden brown or imperfect fluorescent pink.

Diners can savor their gulps at red-upholstered semicircle booths indoors, or sprawl on the outdoor wooden patio as kids clamber over the restaurant's playground. This Groupon is also valid for merchandise, allowing customers to swathe cold cans in a festive koozie ($2.75), or layer a Buddy's Backyard tank top ($15.99) beneath a Buddy's Backyard T-shirt ($12.99) beneath a standard-issue bear suit.

Customer Reviews