This is part of our series that celebrates America’s Favorite Neighborhood Restaurants. We asked 80 of the most interesting people we know to reveal the local spots they love the most.

There’s a highway that runs through Clear Lake, Texas, called NASA Road 1. As you get closer to the space center, everything is on brand, like the Nasa liquor store, Nasa Chiropractic, Budgetel Inn Spacecenter Nasa, and Nasa Fast Food (a Vietnamese restaurant). When life hands you a theme, you go with it.

Once you get to the actual space center, there’s a V in the road where two mini rocket ships, angled as if about to take off into the sky, signal your arrival. If you look closely, there are astronaut mannequin men at the helm, and after a few years, one of them has sort of slouched forward, the glass of the window gathering dust. Like the thousands of other NASA employees laid off throughout the years, the plastic man too seems affected by Congress’s illogical decision to cut the budget time and time again.

The toy rockets were a local landmark in a stretch of copy-and-paste strip malls. My dad and I used it as a halfway point for long runs; it’s where you need to turn to pick up Grandma and go to church; and oh yes, we’re two blocks away from Mediterraneo Market and Café.

Repeat to self: “Their safety in space depends on your quality on Earth.” Photo by Max Burkhalter

The proximity to the space center is part of what brings the astronauts and NASA employees to Mediterraneo for lunch, but the reason our family eats there is because the Greek and Middle Eastern food is wonderful, the atmosphere cozy and welcoming, and for a family on a budget even tighter than NASA’s, the price makes going out to eat possible.

Like those lowercase Nasa businesses, Mediterraneo also sticks to its theme, which is literally geography. The glass tabletops protect what appear to be printouts from MapQuest circa 2003. Maybe you’ll have the privilege of sitting at Morocco, where you can learn about the country’s population density, see postcards, and take in other educational imagery. By the end of the meal, the map will be covered with red baskets of pita chips, plops of spilled hummus, flakes of phyllo, and those little sticker rings that seal sets of napkins around flatware.

The walls are painted habanero red and Castelvetrano green, but barely a square inch is left unadorned. They’re covered with framed photos of idyllic Grecian coastal towns, visiting celebrities thanking owners Magdy and Sonia Kotb for catering (Coldplay multiple times!), local awards and press, and NASA swag. There are astronaut class portraits (see class of 2012 at the checkout counter while you’re picking out some halva and Jordan almonds), expedition posters, and photos from rocket launches. When astronauts return home from months-long stints on the International Space Station, they might be welcomed with a party catered by Mediterraneo.