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El Paraiso Ice Cream has been making and selling paletas on Fredericksburg Road since 1984. We're visiting Fredericksburg Road through the Deco District for this week's edition of Eat the Street, a series exploring the streets that feed San Antonio's restaurant scene and five restaurants on that street that help shape the character of their neighborhoods.

Deco Pizzeria opened in 2011 at the former site of a gas station on Fredericksburg Road. We're visiting Fredericksburg Road through the Deco District for this week's edition of Eat the Street, a series exploring the streets that feed San Antonio's restaurant scene and five restaurants on that street that help shape the character of their neighborhoods.

Wing options at Deco Pizzeria on Fredericksburg Road include raspberry chipotle, left, and garlic Parmesan. We're visiting Fredericksburg Road through the Deco District for this week's edition of Eat the Street, a series exploring the streets that feed San Antonio's restaurant scene and five restaurants on that street that help shape the character of their neighborhoods.

Brothers Luis Ramiro Jiménez and Frank Jiménez opened Panadería Jiménez on Fredericksburg Road in 2018. We're visiting Fredericksburg Road through the Deco District for this week's edition of Eat the Street, a series exploring the streets that feed San Antonio's restaurant scene and five restaurants on that street that help shape the character of their neighborhoods.

Brothers Luis Ramiro Jiménez and Frank Jiménez opened Panadería Jiménez on Fredericksburg Road in 2018. We're visiting Fredericksburg Road through the Deco District for this week's edition of Eat the Street, a series exploring the streets that feed San Antonio's restaurant scene and five restaurants on that street that help shape the character of their neighborhoods.

Panadería Jiménez on Fredericksburg Road makes a variety of Mexican pastries and cookies. We're visiting Fredericksburg Road through the Deco District for this week's edition of Eat the Street, a series exploring the streets that feed San Antonio's restaurant scene and five restaurants on that street that help shape the character of their neighborhoods.

El Paraiso Ice Cream has been making and selling paletas on Fredericksburg Road since 1984. We're visiting Fredericksburg Road through the Deco District for this week's edition of Eat the Street, a series exploring the streets that feed San Antonio's restaurant scene and five restaurants on that street that help shape the character of their neighborhoods.

El Paraiso Ice Cream has been making and selling paletas on Fredericksburg Road since 1984. We're visiting Fredericksburg Road through the Deco District for this week's edition of Eat the Street, a series exploring the streets that feed San Antonio's restaurant scene and five restaurants on that street that help shape the character of their neighborhoods.

The Mexican snack shop Elotitos opened on Fredericksburg Road in 2021. We're visiting Fredericksburg Road through the Deco District for this week's edition of Eat the Street, a series exploring the streets that feed San Antonio's restaurant scene and five restaurants on that street that help shape the character of their neighborhoods.

The Mexican snack shop Elotitos opened on Fredericksburg Road in 2021. The menu includes chips and nacho cheese called papitas preparadas, Mexican street corn, mangonadas and aguas frescas. We're visiting Fredericksburg Road through the Deco District for this week's edition of Eat the Street, a series exploring the streets that feed San Antonio's restaurant scene and five restaurants on that street that help shape the character of their neighborhoods.

The Original Donut Shop on Fredericksburg Road is both a Mexican cafe and a doughnut shop. We're visiting Fredericksburg Road through the Deco District for this week's edition of Eat the Street, a series exploring the streets that feed San Antonio's restaurant scene and five restaurants on that street that help shape the character of their neighborhoods.

The Original Donut Shop on Fredericksburg Road is both a Mexican cafe and a doughnut shop. Plates include chilaquiles, left, and cheese enchiladas. We're visiting Fredericksburg Road through the Deco District for this week's edition of Eat the Street, a series exploring the streets that feed San Antonio's restaurant scene and five restaurants on that street that help shape the character of their neighborhoods.

The Original Donut Shop on Fredericksburg Road is both a Mexican cafe and a doughnut shop. We're visiting Fredericksburg Road through the Deco District for this week's edition of Eat the Street, a series exploring the streets that feed San Antonio's restaurant scene and five restaurants on that street that help shape the character of their neighborhoods.

For the Jiménez brothers in 2018, San Antonio was a panadería waiting to happen.

Luis Ramiro Jiménez is the baker, the one making pan dulce since 1966. Frank Jiménez knows his way around a kitchen, but he's the numbers guy, mostly. Coming off the success of their bakery in Lubbock, they could have opened Panadería Jiménez anywhere. In La Cantera, near downtown, in Stone Oak.

But there was something about the Deco District, the stretch of Fredericksburg Road west of Interstate 10, where buildings and signs time-warp to the ’20s with clean industrial lines and sharp angles, with cool colors and lettering like a pack of prewar cigarettes.

"It gives it a different type of vibe," Frank Jiménez said.

He liked the sense of community here, the prospect of a corner space next to the Bexar Democratic Party offices and the sepia-tone majesty of the Woodlawn Theatre just a few blocks down, the place where John Wayne hosted the world premiere of "The Alamo" in 1960.

Through fresh eyes, the Deco District is a nostalgia trip, a chance to channel easier times, to imagine the days when a nuclear family might pile into the station wagon for pizza, paletas and pan dulce, for doughnuts or tacos or some of that over-the-top street corn with Flamin’ Hot Cheetos dust.

It's all still here on Fredericksburg Road, the food we loved as kids and still secretly love as adults. And it's the setting for this week's edition of Eat the Street, a series exploring the streets that feed San Antonio's restaurant scene and five businesses on that street that help shape the character of their neighborhoods.

More on Fredericksburg: Eat the Street: Fredericksburg Road keeps the Medical Center well-fed

The menu at Deco Pizzeria on Fredericksburg Road includes a Mediterranean pizza, a pepperoni pizza and a strawberry salad. We're visiting Fredericksburg Road through the Deco District for this week's edition of Eat the Street, a series exploring the streets that feed San Antonio's restaurant scene and five restaurants on that street that help shape the character of their neighborhoods.

For one cloudy afternoon, the tiled courtyard outside this former gas station became a political pep rally, a meet-and-greet for City Council runoff candidates Sukh Kaur in District 1 and Marina Alderete Gavito in District 7.

Infrastructure and education aren't as sexy as pizza and wings, but Deco Pizzeria and owner Jacob Valenzuela have been part of both conversations since the restaurant opened in 2011, preserving the old Texaco station's mission-style arches and art deco tower. Today, it's that place on Fredericksburg with the flamingos out front, the place with frozen margaritas, live music, year-round chicken-on-a-stick and barbacoa pizza on the weekends.

It's also a place for pepperoni pizza on a thin tavern-style crust and raspberry-chipotle wings that could hold their own in a runoff with the best in the city.

1815 Fredericksburg Road, 210-732-3326, Facebook: Deco Pizzeria

Panadería Jiménez on Fredericksburg Road makes a variety of Mexican pastries and cookies. We're visiting Fredericksburg Road through the Deco District for this week's edition of Eat the Street, a series exploring the streets that feed San Antonio's restaurant scene and five restaurants on that street that help shape the character of their neighborhoods.

The workday starts at 4 a.m. for the Jiménez brothers, a day they’ll pull 800 pieces of pan dulce from the ovens by the time it's done. The bakery case is a department-store window of conchas, cookies, cinnamon-dusted bizcochos and gingerbread maranito piggies, of doughnuts and polvorones and eight kinds of empanadas, from the best-selling pumpkin to blueberry cream cheese.

Up front, Frank Jiménez is going full bartender mode on a Mexi-Choco latte in a steel cocktail shaker, a trick to keep it cold without diluting it with too much ice in the cup. They care about the little things here: a good cup of coffee, local art on the walls, a chubby kolache with a jalapeño link from San Antonio's own Kiolbassa sausage company.

Does Frank ever eavesdrop when the Bexar Democrats drop by or the mayor stops in? "We act like we don't hear it, but we catch some of it."

1846 Fredericksburg Road, 210-973-5050, panaderiajimenez.com

El Paraiso Ice Cream has been making and selling paletas on Fredericksburg Road since 1984. We're visiting Fredericksburg Road through the Deco District for this week's edition of Eat the Street, a series exploring the streets that feed San Antonio's restaurant scene and five restaurants on that street that help shape the character of their neighborhoods.

You take them for granted, those 60-cent paletas in more than 25 flavors that carry the El Paraiso name. They’re all over town, in taquería freezer cases, at convenience stores, in the handcarts pushed by paleteros on sun-baked sidewalks.

What you probably didn't know is that they’re made right here on Fredericksburg Road, the way they have been since 1984 in this blue and white building with a roof like a nun's habit. On a Friday just before noon, a team of workers filled, froze and planted wooden sticks in hundreds of mango-chile paleta molds on an assembly line that ended with the pops riding steel rails into twin sheets of label tape before being packed by hand by the dozens in cardboard boxes.

Owner José Florez figures they go through about 12,000 paletas a day, with ice cream and fruit flavors that include tamarind, watermelon, cookies and cream, pineapple and pickles. Yes, pickles. The best 60 cents you’ll spend this summer. Or any summer.

1934 Fredericksburg Road, 210-737-8101, elparaisoicecream.com

Best doughnuts: San Antonio's Top 10 Doughnuts

The Mexican snack shop Elotitos opened on Fredericksburg Road in 2021. The menu includes chips and nacho cheese called papitas preparadas, Mexican street corn, mangonadas and aguas frescas. We're visiting Fredericksburg Road through the Deco District for this week's edition of Eat the Street, a series exploring the streets that feed San Antonio's restaurant scene and five restaurants on that street that help shape the character of their neighborhoods.

When Jesus Arreaga opened Elotitos two years ago, he described it to me this way: "Like going to a coffee shop, except with corn." He followed through with a dozen styles of Mexican-style corn in a cup, layering crema, queso fresco, mayonnaise and roasted corn with an apothecary cabinet of possibilities: Valentina hot sauce, Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, chili powder, nacho cheese, chipotle, Doritos, jalapeños, Takis and all the other things that make eating your vegetables even better than eating dessert.

Dessert's pretty good here, too, especially a brain-freeze mangonada with chamoy and gummies. And the in-between spaces are a color wheel of cucumber, watermelon and horchata aguas frescas, and the maxed-out nacho kaleidoscopes called papitas preparadas.

Given its carnival midway menu, Elotitos is a counterintuitively modernist shop with white walls, blond wood, basket lights and bright canvases painted by San Antonio artists. Like a coffee shop, except with corn.

1933 Fredericksburg Road, 726-999-2609, elotitossa.com

The Original Donut Shop on Fredericksburg Road is both a Mexican cafe and a doughnut shop. We're visiting Fredericksburg Road through the Deco District for this week's edition of Eat the Street, a series exploring the streets that feed San Antonio's restaurant scene and five restaurants on that street that help shape the character of their neighborhoods.

If I’m stretching the boundaries of the Deco District by folding in The Original Donut Shop at the far north end near Babcock Road, maybe it's because I like my doughnuts and breakfast tacos in the same place, dreaming the San Antonio dream of a well-balanced diet. I’m not alone. The double drive-thru — one lane for tacos, the other for doughnuts — backs up into the road like a flash-mob traffic jam, creating a special kind of nightmare for the left-hand turn off Vance Jackson.

The doughnuts came first, in 1954, followed by tacos and a full-line Mexican cafe a couple decades later. As pretty as the icing and sprinkles are, the best doughnuts are the ones with cinnamon, the ones twisted like pretzels and the cake doughnuts decked out like churros with a crystalline shag coat of sugar and cinnamon.

The ordering line for the cafe side is a pressure cooker for the indecisive, squinting at a printed menu of enchilada plates, chilaquiles, carne guisada, huevos rancheros and more than 30 tacos on tortillas they roll, pat and cook on the flat-top right in front of you. Let me make a few decisions for you: chilaquiles plate with bacon, toasted bean and cheese taco, carne guisada taco with cheese. Thank you; drive through.

3307 Fredericksburg Road, 210-734-5661, us.orderspoon.com/ods

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