Five Points & Manhattan Heights
Central El Paso’s slow-burn revival — old bungalows, new small businesses, no pretense.
The character of the place
- A historic district of 1920s homes next to a commercial crossroads that is filling back in.
- Independent shops and kitchens opening in buildings that sat empty for years.
- Central enough that everything is 12 minutes away.
Eat and drink here
All places →L&J Cafe
$$Tex-Mex · Central, next to Concordia Cemetery
The Old Place by the Graveyard. Opened in 1927 as Tony’s Place — home cooking, home brew and slot machines through Prohibition — and still the yardstick every other plate in town gets measured against.
Kiki's Restaurant & Bar
$$Tex-Mex · Central, Piedras St
A tiny, perpetually packed room opened by Paula Yardeni in 1976, with a machacado plate people plan their week around.
Café Mayapán
$Mexican, cooperative · South-Central, Texas Ave
A restaurant run as part of a women workers’ organization in south-central El Paso, serving interior Mexican cooking with on-the-job training attached.
Taconeta
$Taquería · Central, Montana Ave
A contemporary taquería that lands on statewide best-of lists — Texas Monthly put it at No. 6 among the 50 best taco restaurants in Texas.
Tacoholics
$Taquería · Central El Paso
A local taco brand that grew out of a food-truck following into a proper following.
Savage Goods
$Café & bakery · Sunset Heights, Oregon St
A family-run corner café in Sunset Heights that has turned up on statewide best-of lists — coffee, pastry and a short, sharp menu.
Salt + Honey Bakery Café
$Bakery & café · Texas Ave, with express counters downtown
Pastry, breakfast and lunch out of a bright room on Texas Ave, plus quick counters downtown.
Bowie Bakery
$Panadería · Segundo Barrio
Grab a tray and tongs and walk the racks — conchas, empanadas and marranitos at prices that have not caught up to the rest of the country.
Do this here
All things to do →Scenic Drive Overlook
Overlook
The five-minute version of the mountain view: park, walk to the rail, and see El Paso and Juárez laid out as one city.
Concordia Cemetery
Historic cemetery
A sprawling frontier burial ground with separate sections for Chinese railroad workers, Buffalo Soldiers, Jesuits, and the gunfighter John Wesley Hardin.
Chamizal National Memorial
National Park Service site
A national park commemorating the peaceful settlement of a century-long border dispute between the United States and Mexico.
Magoffin Home State Historic Site
Historic house
An 1875 adobe hacienda still holding the furnishings of the family that helped build El Paso.
El Paso Zoo
Zoo
A mid-size city zoo with an Asian grasslands section, a Chihuahuan Desert area, and enough shade to survive a summer morning.
McKelligon Canyon
Canyon park & amphitheater
A box canyon cut into the Franklins with a road to the back of it, picnic areas, trailheads and a stone amphitheater that hosts Viva! El Paso each summer.
Wyler Aerial Tramway (closed for reconstruction)
State park site
The gondola to Ranger Peak has been closed since 2018. A reconstruction backed by roughly $27 million in state funding is underway — but it is not open, and will not be for a while.
Lincoln Park & the freeway murals
Public art
Dozens of Chicano murals painted across the concrete columns where I-10 and US-54 cross — one of the most significant collections of Chicano public art in the Southwest.
Also worth knowing
- Kiki's Restaurant & Bar
- L&J Cafe is minutes east
Nearby
- Concordia Cemetery
- Neighborhood coffee and thrifting