In July of 2023, we tried to determine who had Wichita Falls’ best pizza, and came to the conclusion Stone Oven, Progress Pizza, and Half Pint Taproom’s pizza were some of the best to be found.

Last fall, we amended that list to include Chicago Pizza Kitchens’ saucy single serve pizzas from their Sikes Senter mall location, but since then, we’ve had an out-of-body pizza experience that it requires an update to this list.

A Chicago-style deep dish pie from Luigi’s Italian Pizzeria.

The deep dish pie from Luigi’s, 3600 Sheppard Access, is as close as you can get to an authentic Chicago-style pizza in Wichita Falls.

The most particular pizza aficionados might point out an actual Chicago-style pizza has two crusts, one on the bottom and one on top, like a pie, whereas the Luigi’s Chicago-style has only the bottom crust. Regardless, the Chicago-style from Luigi’s is out of this world.

When we first tasted our pizza, we were blown away. It was delicious, with a fresh baked bread-like crust, plenty of sauce, ground beef, and green olives.

And filling. Wow.

A single slice of this pie could make you tap out.

Luigi’s pizza immediately vaulted into our top echelon of pizza experiences in Wichita Falls.

Take note: If you order a Chicago-style for dine-in at Luigi’s, it is recommended you call and order your pie a half hour to an hour ahead of time, because they take time to prepare and bake.

Another contender showed itself to my pizza addiction this past winter as well, and like Luigi’s pizza, it comes from an authentic-feel Italian restaurant — Mia’s Italian Bistro. It has a delicious sauce, and mom-and-pop pizzeria appeal that can’t be denied.

Considering the additions of Luigi’s and Mia’s, we think Chicago Pizza Kitchen is now bumped from our top five places to get pizza in Wichita Falls.

Consider this your Spring 2024 update. We’ve sampled pizza from more than a dozen places. Progress Pizza, Half Pint, and Stone Oven, all rank high on the pizza scale in Wichita Falls, and Luigi’s Italian Pizzeria and Mia’s Italian Bistro are our newest additions, both high on the list.

What’s your favorite pizza in Fallstown? Tell us in the comments.

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It’s late. Really late.

Your night of revelry with good friends went later than you expected, and instead of going home to bed like you should have, you’re still up, thinking about where to go next. Dinner was 7 hours ago, and as your stomach rumbles, you wonder Where can I get some late night grub in Wichita Falls?

After intensive field research, TheFUSE has assembled this list of late night food options in Wichita Falls. This list is by no means exhaustive, and you’re encouraged to leave your own suggestions in the comments.

Where to Get Late Night Food

Wichita Falls / Updated September 2024

Backporch DraftHouse

One location open ‘til midnight Friday and Saturday

Broad Street Billiards

One location serving basic bar food until 2 AM.

Buffalo Wild Wings

One location. Open ‘til 2 AM on Friday and Saturday, midnight the rest of the week.

Denny’s

One location. Open 24 hours.

Hawaiian Brothers

One location open ‘til midnight, seven days a week.

Ihop

One location. Open 24 hours.

Jack in the Box

One location open 24 hours. Second location open ‘til midnight.

Legends Roadhouse

One location. Serving food ‘til 1 AM or close.

P2 The Deuce

One location open ‘til 2 AM Fridays and Saturdays, midnight the rest of the week.

Progress Pizza

One location open ‘til 10 PM.

Raising Cane’s

One location open ‘til 1 AM Fridays and Saturdays, midnight the rest of the week.

Stone Oven Pizza

One location. Open ‘til midnight on weekends.

Taco Bell

4 locations open ‘til 1 AM or later, in some cases, drive-thru only

Wendy’s

One location open 24 hours, second location open ‘til 1 AM

Whataburger

4 locations. Open 24 hours, seven days/week.

There’s always a chance you can find a food truck open late, too, particularly downtown.

What other places should we have on this list? Where do you go for late night food in Wichita Falls? Tell us about it in the comments.

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TheFUSE has previously attempted to determine who serves the best pizza in Wichita Falls, with delicious results. We concluded Stone Oven Pizza, Progress Pizza, Half-Pint, and Chicago Pizza Kitchens were among the best.

Next, we turned our attention to burgers in an attempt to discern where is the best place to get a burger and fries in Fallstown? For clarity’s sake, it should be noted we focused on five specific mom & pop type burger joints. Although there are surely more bougie out-of-this-world full-service restaurant burgers to be had, we wanted to focus specifically on local places that specialize in burgers and fries.

So, we chose five different locations, and over the course of a week, we visited each for lunch and ordered the same four items at each place to make sure our experience would be apples-to-apples. Here are our thoughts:

Gene’s Tasty Burger

We lost Gene’s Tasty Burger for a period in 2023 when the location closed, but they soon re-opened under new management. We visited on a weekday, just as the lunch rush was getting underway. We found Gene’s to be located in a working class neighborhood, at 2310 Holliday Rd, and it appeared to be a popular lunch spot for law enforcement personnel.

We found the burgers at Gene’s salty and old-fashioned, just the way we like ‘em. The patties came in small (4 oz) and large sizes (6 oz) and they appeared to be hand-pattied from fresh beef, with great flavor.

The onion rings were standout crunchy, and the tots were, in one taste-tester’s opinion, the best she ever had. Gene’s french fries were soft and potato-ey shoe strings, and the portions were some of the most generous of the restaurants we visited. Gene’s offered free refills on soda.

The price point at Gene’s Tasty Burger for two burger combos with an extra side of onion rings was $30.86, and we would find nearly every place we visited (with one exception) in approximately the same price range.

Scott’s Drive-In

Scott’s Drive-In, at 4701 Old Jacksboro Highway, is a real old-fashioned drive in with cooks in paper hats and oldies blaring from the overhead speakers in the dining room. Outside, there are about a dozen drive in parking spots where you can order your food from a speaker and get it delivered by a car hop. The dining room is very small with limited seating, and the indoor ordering model has you order at the counter, then they sling your order ticket down a line on a clothespin to the cooks. You pay when you pick it up, and our total order seemed to be about 5-dollars cheaper than the other places we visited.

We found Scott’s fries to be a delicious crinkle cut style, and the tots were very good too. The burgers seemed to be on the smaller side, and our taste testers couldn’t agree on whether the patties were previously frozen or not.

If you decide to visit Scott’s, be aware they get very busy during lunch time. Also, if you need something sweet for dessert, one taste tester had a Cherry Malt that was absolutely to die for… we were still talking about it days later.

Ronnie’s Burgers

Ronnie’s Burgers, 1501 Midwestern Parkway, was the only location we visited with a strip mall location, and the overall ambience reflected a more corporate experience, with a large dining room and franchise-type look. The food, however, was great, and each of our taste testers took note of the excellent customer service.

We found the burgers at Ronnie’s to be good with big patties, and the fries were soft and potato-ey. The tots at Ronnie’s seemed to be lightly seasoned in a manner the other locations’ were not. Ronnie’s offered free soda refills at the counter, and the strawberry shake we ordered was thick and delicious.

When your order is ready for pickup at the counter, they call your number over a loudspeaker… have your airport ears at the ready, because they are not always easy to understand.

Willie’s Place

Willie’s Place was the most “downhome” of the burger joints we visited for this story, and it had character in spades. Located at 3135 10th Street, Willie’s is in a blue-collar neighborhood where we saw two (friendly) stray dogs running loose outside, mounted deer heads and old license plates on the walls, and a corrugated steel ceiling. There are no public restrooms that we saw at Willie’s, so each table has a bottle of hand sanitizer for pre and post-meal cleanup.

Our taste testers agreed Willie’s burgers were in the middle of the pack, but their shoestring fries were good, as were the tater tots, although they lacked seasoning. Willie’s offers only condiment packets; there are no ketchup or mustard bottles at the table. On the positive side, Willie’s offered a good selection of BBQ items, including ribs, brisket and hot links.

Pat’s Drive Inn

Pat’s Drive Inn is located right near downtown, at 400 Scott Avenue, and we visted right at the height of lunch rush. We arrived to find the parking lot packed and expected to have a hard time finding a seat, so we were surprised to find a booth just being cleared, and we were able to sit down without a wait.

Of particular note, Pat’s was the only burger joint we visited in which a server waited on you at your table, and ours was prompt and attentive.

The burgers at Pat’s, in our opinion, appeared to be made from a frozen patty and were somewhat average. The fries were, however, one taste tester’s favorite of the bunch — thin, shoestring fries that looked like they would be soft and potato-ey under most circumstances, but ours were well-done and crunchy. Very good.

The tater tots were crispy but otherwise run-of-the-mill, and the onion rings were about the same. We had one negative observation about Pat’s, but no explanation… the unpleasant taste of Wichita Falls’ tap water seemed to be particularly overpowering in the ice cubes at Pat’s, and it was the only place our taste testers did not ask for a soda refill.

In the long run, we found something to love about each place we tried, and we cannot name an overall winner. We agreed, though, that Gene’s had the best tater tots and onion rings, the best burgers were likely from Ronnie’s or Gene’s in our opinion, and Scott’s had the best malt (Cherry) we’ve ever had. Willie’s was the place to go if you want a real Texas dive burger experience, and Pat’s and Ronnie’s were neck-and-neck frontrunners in the customer service experience.

For those with particular dietary desires, nobody had a gluten-free bun and nobody had an alternative (black bean) burger. All five of these locations are a guilty pleasure for sure.

There are other places to get burgers and fries in Wichita Falls, of course, and we’d love to hear your favorites. Mom & Pop burger joints? Full-service restaurants? Sound off in the comments and tell us what you think.

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Although I first moved to Texas in 2000, I had never been to Wichita Falls until I arrived in April, and when I got here, one of the first questions I started asking was “Where’s the best pizza in the Falls?”

I got a number of answers, and I’ve been sacrificing for the sake of science by personally eating all of them to determine for myself who has Wichita Falls best pizza?

I work from home and don’t know many people in Wichita Falls yet, so I literally had nowhere to go and nobody to see on this particular evening, and I just felt like I needed to get out of the house. For no reason at all, I got a little dressed up and went to Half Pint Taproom to sample the pizza people had been telling me about.

I’ve already written about Progress Pizza’s excellent Detroit-style, and Stone Oven’s garlicky hand-tossed pizza, and both of them are strong contenders for best pizza in Wichita Falls. However, the crust on a Half Pint Taproom pizza is the closest to a classic pizzaria-style crust that I’ve tried yet. It’s crisp and a little crackery on the edge and thin and floppy in the middle, just like cousin Sal used to make down at the corner pizzaria.

Half Pint’s pizzas are made in a brick oven and they have an entire menu of specialty pizzas you can choose from, but I’m an easy customer on that front because I’m always ordering some variation of pepperoni, and Half Pint’s was great.

The red sauce was sufficiently zesty, and their pepperoni pizza comes with ricotta on it which I found a little bit salty in a great way — it added a little something that I didn’t expect to an already great pizza. My niece says Half Pint’s pizza is her favorite in the Falls.

The service was great at Half Pint — my server was training a new server, and with the bartender, I think three or four different Half Point employees touched my table while I was there. Very attentive.

Also, the price point is totally reasonable. My pizza and a couple of sodas came to $16. With great pizza, affordable prices and good service, it’s easy to see why Half Pint Taproom draws people from all walks of life.

All that said, I think my favorite thing about Half Pint Taproom’s pepperoni pizza is how good the leftovers are with an icy soda at 10 PM while you watch Netflix.

I’m gonna make a point to go back and catch a live show in the Restoration Hall next time, but for now, I can’t recommend their pizza highly enough.

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