New in Amarillo: Canyon’s newest eateries and coffee offerings

AMARILLO, Texas (KFDA) - For this week’s New in Amarillo, we’re looking south at new eateries in Canyon. These new businesses feature offerings like latte art, authentic Mexican coast flavor and locally sourced gourmet steaks.

Canyon Ranch Steak & Sports opened up in the square recently.

Owner Troy Davidson said he was inspired by his two favorite things: sports and steaks.

His main goal was allowing Canyon residents to get a good steak without having to leave town.

The sports bar committed to providing what the owners calls “panhandle food”.

The menu is full of meat and potatoes, but with an added gourmet twist.

The restaurant combines an inviting and fun sports bar atmosphere with high-end meat.

“Any sport that is on, we’re gonna have on. We are very committed to that,” said Davidson. “We plan out our sports viewing, especially on a football Saturday. You can come in here and watch your favorite team on TV and have a great steak at a very fair price.”

Located in the beef capital of the world, Canyon Ranch wanted to take advantage of locally produced meat.

All of the beef they serve comes from the Texas Panhandle, and much of it is even cut at West Texas A&M University.

“We serve 10-ounce rib eye topped with sautéed mushrooms, four grilled shrimp, serviced with a loaded baked potato, steamed broccoli, sweet yeast roll and honey butter," said Davidson in regards to one of their most popular meals.

Many of their side dishes and toppings are also sourced locally.

“We purchase our honey that we put in the honey butter from Creek House Farm right here in Canyon [and] the beef is coming from Hereford,” explained Davison.

Their most popular lunch dish is the snakebite sandwich, which includes an 8-ounce chicken breast, topped with buffalo sauce and fried jalapeños.

The sports bar offers all types of foods from classic onion rings to blackened salmon.

Canyon Ranch Steak & Sports has live music on Friday nights, happy hour on weekdays and offers different specials every weekend.

El Patio, a new Mexican eatery, recently opened off the interstate and has been doing mostly carryout orders due to the pandemic.

The restaurant is committed to bringing authentic Mexican flavor to town, so much so they even import their seafood from the cost of Mexico.

Served in a festive shell-shaped bowl, their oyster platter is their most popular weekend dish.

“So you get your lime and you squeeze it all over your shrimp,” explained Julieta Sanchez, co-owner of El Patio. “It’s got a dozen oysters and shrimp [and] it comes with cucumbers.”

El patio offers a wide variety of dishes. Their most loved dish is the fried cheesy tacos with a beef broth dipping sauce.

Owners hope visitors can experience unique Mexican flavors from different parts of the country, specifically the gulf coast and the State of Mexico down south.

“We wanted to bring something new to canyon, different flavors from different parts of Mexico,” said Sanchez. “It is more from the gulf coast and what we try to do is add a little bit of the Chile pepper to our salsa and, for instance, our dipping sauces.”

El Patio also offers classic dishes like chicken fried steak and cheeseburgers, and they even deliver to Canyon, Amarillo and surrounding areas.

Journey Coffee, a coffee shop and study spot, has opened up in Canyon across from the First United Bank Center.

The married couple was inspired to open Journey Coffee after traveling the world.

As self-proclaimed ‘coffee geeks’, the couple said they love trying and critiquing different coffee houses in every city they have traveled.

Eventually they figured it was time to give it a try themselves.

“We’ve traveled all over and we’ve enjoyed going to coffee shops and seeing what the local shops look like,” said said Stephanie Littlejohn, co-owner of Journey Coffee.

“There were a lot of things we’d taste different places and things like nitro brew coffee, that we’ve never had before, where it comes out of the tap like Guinness and it has that texture and everything and its really cool and we wanted to bring that kind of thing here to Canyon," finished her husband and fellow co-owner, Noah Littlejohn.

Their specialty, aside from freshly ground coffee, is the designs they make with each latte.

A mix between science and art, Journey Coffee baristas love to experiment with latte art and see the smile on people’s faces when they see a tulip formed in their latte foam.

“We have the opportunity to work on perfecting our espresso and our milk to be able to do latte art. There’s actually a way that you steam the milk there a way that you flatten out your puck for your espresso to put into the portafilter. And you can make hearts, you can make tulips...” said Stephanie Littlejohn.

Journey Coffee offers tea, mochas and espresso shots as well.

One of their most unique menu items is ‘The 1885’, a nitro-brew with a hint of vanilla, topped off with Dr. Pepper.

You can get your personalized latte art, or just a standard cup of Joe by running through their drive thru, by stopping in or through ordering delivery.

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