bugsy running on lone rock beach with the airstream and f-150 in the background

One night in Amarillo, TX–Tucson for Christmas trip

We visited Amarillo in December 2023 as part of our Tucson for Christmas trip.

the free 72oz steak meal at Big Texan
the world famous free steak dinner in Amarillo!

From Tulsa, we were back on the interstate for five hours, pushing west west west to Amarillo. We’d hoped to spend the night and do some hiking in gorgeous Palo Duro Canyon State Park just outside Amarillo, but with the forecast of cold rain we weren’t going to be enjoying nature anyway, so decided to save the extra driving and stay in town near the highway.

Driving on I-40 is the absolute worst, but we did learn something neat along the way to spice up our travel a bit: Indian restaurants have started springing up at truck stops along the interstates. Noticing multiple billboards advertising Indian food in surprisingly rural roadside locales, we did some digging and found that as more and more Punjabi long-haul drivers move to the US, small restaurants called Punjabi dhabas are springing up to support them along major routes. We finally stopped at our first one today, as I write this post–in January, in East Texas between Austin and Lafayette, and it exceeded our expectations!

Campground

Bugsy at our campsite at Big Texan
our campsite at empty Big Texan RV Ranch

We camped at Big Texan RV Ranch, part of the Big Texan Steak Ranch family. It’s a huge park, with spacious campsites and lots of amenities, but because of the rain we didn’t do much exploring. The location is super convenient to the interstate, but with that convenience you get lots of truck and train noise. Overall, Big Texan was a pleasant place to spend the night. And how’s this for a campground amenity: there’s a free shuttle from the campground to the steakhouse, in the form of a limo with giant bull horns on the hood.

Eating and drinking

The only Amarillo food we ate was fried pickles at Big Texan in their “brewery.” They were delicious, of course, because they were fried pickles. The order size, like everything at Big Texan, was ENORMOUS.

breakfast burrito in the car from Foolish Things
Foolish Things breakfast burrito on the drive to Amarillo

Otherwise, we ate breakfast burritos from Foolish Things in Tulsa on the drive…

peanut stew from Global Cafe in Tulsa
Peanut stew is really unphotogenic

and leftover peanut stew from Global Cafe in Memphis for dinner.

Breweries, by J

There are four breweries in Amarillo, assuming you include Big Texan, which is really a massive steakhouse/tourist attraction that seems to brew some beer. One of the four, Old Tascosa Brewery, seems brand new and didn’t show up on our web research ahead of our visit. 

Pondaseta Brewing taproom
Pondaseta beers

We started the evening at Pondaseta Brewing Co, which is housed in a former service station. Oddly, the brewery is split in two, with the tasting room bar and seating area split from the brewing area seating area by a glass door and large glass window, presumably for temperature reasons (?). We would prefer something more open, but it was still a nice enough setting, particularly the brewery area with its large bay doors. As for the beers, they had 17 beers on tap, with two hazy IPAs for J, but no sours for L. They also had 3 can pours, including a traditional (non-fruited) gose for L. L didn’t love her beer whereas J found his hazy IPA good enough.

a cute part of Amarillo
the area near Six Car looked kind of cute

From Pondaseta, we drove along historic Route 66 (our verdict: some nice storefronts and neat architecture, but overall the stretch seemed pretty vacant) to get to Six Car Pub & Brewery, which was annoyingly closed for a private event. We weren’t too disappointed, however, given Six Car really seems like more of a restaurant that also brews five German-style beers; had we been able to go we likely would have found more enjoyment in their guest taps.

singing critters by the "brewery" at Big Texan
singing and dancing critters by the “brewery” at Big Texan

Finally, we went to Big Texan Brewery at the famous Big Texan Steak Ranch. The “brewery” area / bar is in sort of a wide open hallway between the gift shop and the dining room. While we sipped our drinks (lager for J, a festive(?) apple cidermosa for L) and snacked on fried pickles we were assaulted by a cacophony of the house music, separate employee music from the workstation behind the bar and the occasional hokey song from the shooting game behind us (see pic).

the main dining room at Big Texan
the dining room at Big Texan

We didn’t love the beer or the scene of Big Texan “Brewery,” but the wildly-decorated dining room was another matter…. competitors in the free 72oz steak meal challenge sit at the elevated table in the middle of the room, with barf buckets handy and timers for spectators to monitor. It’s very much worth reading the rules of the 72oz Steak Challenge! It’s not just a 72oz steak… it’s that, plus shrimp cocktail, a salad, a baked potato, and a roll with butter. This woman ate THREE of the entire challenge meals in TWENTY MINUTES in 2015. Absolutely wild. She’s featured in the display at Big Texan in the photo at the top of this post.

our rainy campsite in Amarillo
cold and rainy Airstream

To do

If we return, here are things on our list that we didn’t get to since we were so briefly in Amarillo:

In the morning, we continued our westward migration, from rainy Amarillo to snowy Albuquerque!

Comments

4 responses to “One night in Amarillo, TX–Tucson for Christmas trip”

  1. […] for Christmas trip has begun! We’re heading west–I’m typing this from cold, rainy Amarillo, and I hit publish in Arizona! Since we’re rushing out West as quickly as reasonably […]

  2. […] to the south through New Mexico. Palo Duro is a half-hour southeast of Amarillo (where we ended up spending a night a year later), and worth the extra drive from the […]

  3. Uncle Jim Avatar
    Uncle Jim

    Sorry I failed to recommend that you guys stop and spend a night in the BLUE SWALLOW motel in Tucumcari, NM. An amazing establishment from the early years of the last century. Spend a night there and see what your grandparents enjoyed on their trips to the beautiful southwest in the 20’s and 30’s. Check them out on you google machine and be advised, reservations are a must and should be made a month or more in advance.

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