Live in San Antonio long enough, and you’ll be come an expert on the city, its culture, its people and its quirks. For some of us, it doesn’t take long for us to develop enough of that knowledge to form strong opinions on topics including the NBA, local drivers, failed restaurants, haunted locations, favorite taco spots and a whole lot more.

Here are a few things everyone living in San Antonio understands — and probably has enough expertise on to voice fiercely held convictions. 

They regularly butcher street and place names like Boerne, Huebner and Toepperwein.In truth, most of us aren’t even sure we’re pronouncing them correctly. Credit: Michael Karlis
The NBA San Antonio Spurs fans are anything but the fair-weather variety of sports enthusiasts. That means we always have an opinion on why our team isn’t getting the respect from the NBA it deserves. In the years the Spurs make the playoffs, we speculate that the league’s behind-the-scenes manipulators are trying to keep us out of the finals because we’re a small media market. When we lose a close game, it’s time to blame the referees. We’re also armchair experts on which players Coach Gregg Popovich should have on the floor at any given moment and what he should or shouldn’t be saying to the media. Credit: Spurs / Reginald Thomas II
Why a local restaurant went out of business Want to know why a local restaurant shut its doors? Turns out nobody has more answers than San Antonio residents, especially ones dropping juicy truth bombs in local news comment sections. In this most sacred of spaces you’ll find kernels of wisdom like “maybe they shouldn’t charge $10 for an enchilada plate,” “their assistant manager is always so condescending” and “when they got rid of the mango margaritas 10 years ago, I knew it was all over.” Credit: Sanford Nowlin
Credit: Photo via Instagram / fertthefoodie
H-E-B Plus! – $150 You picked up this week’s groceries, refurnished the living room and got your flu and COVID shots in a single trip. Skip ahead three spaces. Credit: Shutterstock / Moab Republic
Terrell Castle, a.k.a. The Lambermont Now home to a fancy wedding venue, this historic building was built for the influential Edwin Holland Terrell and fashioned after European castles. The property remained a source of pride until Terrell’s suicide in 1910 after years of suffering with syphilis. Unfortunately, his initial attempt failed, and it took him 10 days to die. Other tragic tales associated with the mansion include a contractor who threw himself from a balcony during construction, and a man who killed his wife and her lover when he caught them in bed together during World War II. Fortunately, the 12,000 square foot building is expansive enough to accommodate plenty of guests, so couples shouldn’t be too worried about ghastly wedding crashers. Credit: Sanford Nowlin
Street food It’s a safe bet that nobody eats more street food than San Antonians. Hell, we’ve got an annual, 11-day citywide party pretty much devoted to it. Ask us and we’ll tell you the absolute must-try food booths at any Fiesta event, and there’s a good chance we even know which of our favorite vendors will be showing up at non-Fiesta gatherings. Credit: Jaime Monzon
Fred’s Fish Fry – $10 You search for evidence it’s a drug front, but don’t find anything. Lose a turn while you eat a seafood platter. No requirement to pay the bank since the meal cost you next to nothing. Credit: Sanford Nowlin
Which famous people went to what San Antonio high school Any local can rattle off a list of every famous person who attended their high school, it’s probably the only history San Antonians can unanimously agree on. Credit: The CW / Walker
Former inmates who served alongside Yolanda Saldivar said many on the outside want revenge for Selena’s slaying. Credit: Shutterstock / Lisa T Snow
They get irate when someone smashes a cascarone over their head around Fiesta time.Sometimes fists even fly. We’ve all seen it happen. Credit: Jaime Monzon
Classic Heavy Metal San Antonio wasn’t called the Heavy Metal Capital of the World for nothing. We were once the nation’s most metal-obsessed city and helped break bands like Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and Triumph in the United States. Although that enthusiasm has waned — or maybe just the rest of the country has caught up — we can tell you anything you wanna know about classic metal, from which Judas Priest album “Saints in Hell” is on (Stained Class) to what year Budgie reformed to perform a one-off show at La Semana Alegre (1995). And if we don’t know the answer, we can always check with our tio who’s seen Saxon 23 times and actually partied multiple times on Legs Diamond’s tour bus. Credit: Oscar Moreno
What to do with a grocery cart Anyone from San Antonio will tell you that the correct way to return a shopping cart is to either leave it next to your car or ghost ride it into a nearby bush, hedge or curb. Some grocery stores offer “cart corrals,” but these are more of a suggestion, and it will be a cold day in hell before we walk across a hot parking lot to return a grocery cart for those H-E-B fat cats. Credit: Shutterstock / Katelyn Earhart
Cherrity Bar 302 Montana St., (210) 598-0496, cherritybar.com Seated comfortably at the corner of Cherry and Montana streets on the East Side, Cherrity Bar covers nearly an entire city block. The spot boasts “a relaxed, friendly atmosphere where all are welcome,” and also hosts family-friendly karaoke on Thursdays. Credit: Nina Rangel
Part of Loop 410 is closing for a construction project, state officials said. Credit: Shutterstock / 4kclips
Accordions Accordions may be butt of jokes among musicians in other cities, but not here, Jack. Thanks to the conjunto sound that grew out of the combination of Mexican folk music and German polkas, we’re all about squeezebox love. Some of our most-beloved musical exports — hello, Flaco and Santiago — are masters of the instrument, Grammy-nominated polka hotshot Alex Meixner relocated to the San Antonio-New Braunfels area because we love accordions so much and we’re even home to a shit-hot punk band with an accordion, Piñata Protest. Credit: Katelyn Earhart
How to dress a beer Ever tried to order a beer in another city and ask for it “dressed?” If it was anywhere north of the Texas border, the bartender probably gave you a blank look. Here in SA we know so much about dressing beers that we’ll tell you exactly how much salt goes around the rim of the glass (all the way around or artfully applied to just a half or a third), whether it’s best to squeeze the lime into the beer and drop the whole sucker in or just squeeze and set it aside) and how many limes are needed per ounce. Credit: Shutterstock / Carly Garner
Murals San Antonio is about to gain a 50-foot tall Spurs mural downtown, which is likely to make a focal point of local public art, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of other murals around the area for us to have strong opinions about. Credit: Courtesy Photo / City of San Antonio's Department of Arts & Culture
Barbecues Any backyard gathering in San Antonio is likely to involve making a fire and charring animal flesh, and that means anyone with an urge to look manly will offer instructions on the proper way to serve as grillmaster. Whether or not one needs the help, a friend or family member is guaranteed to hover around to let you know exactly how to arrange the charcoal, how much lighter fluid to squirt on it, how long each food item should be kissed by fire and whether you screwed up your marinade by adding too much black pepper. Credit: Shutterstock / bbernard
Who the idiot drivers are As residents of the Alamo City, we have experienced bad drivers of all kinds — from douchey speed demons in muscle cars who whip in and out of traffic to guys in overloaded pickup trucks who insist on driving 50 in the fast lane. We’ll tell you who’s driving too fast, too slow, what lane they should be in and whether SAPD should be pulling their ass over. It’s our civic duty, after all. Credit: Shutterstock / ChameleonsEye