Tower Of The Americas
This is a cautionary tale for tourists coming to San Antonio. If you want to see the city from the Tower of the Americas, visit the observation deck, but don't plan on lunch! Landry's recently remodeled the Tower, which has taken over a year to complete. It was always one of our favorite places to visit, when we visited the Riverwalk, so we have been eagerly anticipating it's reopening. It's been a few weeks since the reopening, and having waited a bit for them to get the "bugs" out of their system, we went for our lunch. The decor is gorgeous, but we were in for a series of shocks!
The only problem is, they do not have a luncheon menu. There was not one single thing on the menu a child would eat! Not even a hamburger! Their menu might be fine if we were expecting a dining experience at Ruth's Crist's Steakhouse...but I'm not sure we could have counted on the same quality of steak. That wasn't the worst part of it. I ordered a drink that took 30 minutes to reach the table because some mental midget put soda in where the tonic belonged. They had to go to the base of the 750 foot tower to change it! Huh? That wasn't even the worst part! Sticker shock would be a mild name for it! Rather than the expensive $36 steak, I opted for an appetizer which I was assured would be "excellent". It was tolerable. My husband opted for the Caesar salad, WITHOUT the chicken he would normally order. The salad was $8, and the addition of chicken would have been ADDITIONAL NINE DOLLARS! You can feed a family of 6 for $9 at KFC!!!! We actually got to giggling because it was so ludicrous! There was a shrimp dish that I nearly ordered, but I saw one that was being served and decided I did not want to spend $24 on 4 just-over-medium sized shrimp!
The worst part of the experience was knowing that we would not go back. It was so disappointing! It was a treat we looked forward to every few weeks, and knowing we will not go back is a bit depressing! We will still visit the Riverwalk often, and there are a multitude of wonderful restaurants to choose from, but we'll miss going to the Tower.
The only problem is, they do not have a luncheon menu. There was not one single thing on the menu a child would eat! Not even a hamburger! Their menu might be fine if we were expecting a dining experience at Ruth's Crist's Steakhouse...but I'm not sure we could have counted on the same quality of steak. That wasn't the worst part of it. I ordered a drink that took 30 minutes to reach the table because some mental midget put soda in where the tonic belonged. They had to go to the base of the 750 foot tower to change it! Huh? That wasn't even the worst part! Sticker shock would be a mild name for it! Rather than the expensive $36 steak, I opted for an appetizer which I was assured would be "excellent". It was tolerable. My husband opted for the Caesar salad, WITHOUT the chicken he would normally order. The salad was $8, and the addition of chicken would have been ADDITIONAL NINE DOLLARS! You can feed a family of 6 for $9 at KFC!!!! We actually got to giggling because it was so ludicrous! There was a shrimp dish that I nearly ordered, but I saw one that was being served and decided I did not want to spend $24 on 4 just-over-medium sized shrimp!
The worst part of the experience was knowing that we would not go back. It was so disappointing! It was a treat we looked forward to every few weeks, and knowing we will not go back is a bit depressing! We will still visit the Riverwalk often, and there are a multitude of wonderful restaurants to choose from, but we'll miss going to the Tower.
Just look at the bright side. With all those other restaurants you get to taste! Then you get to pick which ones you both like. Then you may have to go back more often, because you now like 3 or 4 instead of just 1!
Sounds like I hear an adventure coming up soon...
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Rosemary, we've tried nearly every restaurant on the Riverwalk, and have yet to find a bad one, and you can sit right on the river to eat. The loss of the tower is the loss of a bird's eye view of the city.
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Bummer. I was afraid it might be something like that. Do you have any mountains around? Hills? That way, you could at least pack a lunch and still enjoy the view.
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We live in the hill country of Texas, and being a Colorado native, I'm not impressed by the "vistas" even in the hill country. The magic of the Tower is that it shows how one German Catholic Church was built AROUND in the 20's by a department store that went broke in the 30's, because San Antonio cherishes her heritage.
Having grown up in SoCal, I appreciate a city that appreciates her history. In Los Angeles, in Southern California, as I'm sure you know, if it was built 20-30 years ago, tear it down and build something in its place.
Is it true that there are movements to tear down the or re-zone the missions? Hey, why not? They're religious, right? grrrrr
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