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Stuffed with sausage? Crammed with kraut? Drop in at the Hill Top Cafe and
check your oompah at the door. This straight-from-central-casting
service-station-turned-restaurant will overcome your inner German with a dose of
Greek/Cajun food.
Located about 10 miles outside Fredericksburg, 10661 N. U.S. 87, the Hill Top
Cafe is quite the culinary treat, a creation of owners Brenda and Johnny Nicholas. A Greig
family trip to the Hill Country always includes at least one meal at the Hill Top, which
seats 65 diners. Reservations? Recommended. Sunday brunch? Divine!
Do not miss the Greek salad (large enough to be shared, but don't). Then
feast on frog legs, venison medallions with portobello mushrooms, chicken fried sirloin
steak or seafood boudin. Wash that down with a glass of Cakebread Chardonnay or a bottle
of beer — perhaps Chimay Red Ale or Pilsner Urquell. Have room? Try homemade
blackberry or rhubarb pie or Italian cream cake. It's all good.
But the food is only part of the Hill Top experience. Keep your eye peeled
for Tex-erati such as Lance Armstrong, Lady Bird Johnson or Lieutenant Governor David
Dewhurst.
Try to dine there on a weekend evening when Johnny Nicholas often trades his
apron in for a piano bench, guitar or harmonica. This musician/chef has played with Asleep
at the Wheel and Nathan Abshire, Cajun accordionist. And on most Friday and
Saturday nights, Nicholas will play for you. Dining musicians often join him. One night
Nicholas and Jimmie Vaughan jammed for sated and surprised diners — a little
45-minute slice of Texas. (Vaughan had a rehearsal dinner here.)
No cover, just dinner and a show.
