Best Comfort Food Comfort Cafe, Multiple locations, serenitystar.org Credit: Nina Rangel

A San Antonio restaurant that helps its employees work through drug and alcohol recovery will be featured on TV show America’s Best Restaurants.

Comfort Cafe, which has two locations in San Antonio and another east of Austin, is part of the peer-to-peer recovery nonprofit Serenity Star. The cafes are staffed by program enrollees or graduates, and don’t charge guests for food. Instead, diners give a donation, which goes back into the recovery program.

Beyond its worthwhile mission, Comfort Cafe has drawn raves for its hearty and delicious breakfast, brunch and lunch fare.

“One of our mantras, or mottos, is ‘Where miracles happen’,” Front House Manager Jaycee Clark said. “Our goal was to be self-supporting. The finances [were] the last thing on our mind. It was to provide food, service, ambiance, a place that [program participants] are safe and feel comfortable and being seen.”

That unique approach to recovery was enough to convince the producers of America’s Best Restaurants to feature the homegrown chain.

“I think it’s a great opportunity; anything to get the message out,” Comfort Cafe co-owner Rosie Lopez said. “I love what [America’s Best Restaurants] is doing, and I love this storytelling, and I love the heart behind it.”

Show host Luis Rivera will be at Comfort Cafe’s Leon Valley location, 6812 Bandera Road, on Feb. 28 to try out its breakfast and lunch offerings.

America’s Best Restaurants, now in its 25th season, will share an air date for the episode at a later date.

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This article appears in Feb 5-18, 2025.

Michael Karlis is a multimedia journalist at the San Antonio Current, whose coverage in print and on social media focuses on local and state politics. He is a graduate of American University in Washington,...