Where residents actually spend the day
Mercado González Ortega and the fondas around it. The polished part of this old iron-framed market near the cathedral leans touristy now, but the everyday eating still happens at the fondas and stalls in and behind it. This is where locals get breakfast gorditas and the midday comida corrida, the set lunch, soup plus a main plus agua fresca, for a fraction of a restaurant plate, roughly 90 to 140 MXN (approximate). Go around 2 to 3 pm, when the comida rush is on and the food is freshest.
Mezcal in the side streets, not on the terrace. Zacatecas is a mezcal state and drinking it is a genuine habit, not a tourist prop. Beyond the couple of showy bars on Hidalgo, residents drink at smaller mezcalerías and cantinas tucked into the callejones, where the pours are honest and nobody is performing for a camera. Drink it neat, in sips, with a slice of orange or a pinch of the chile-salt sal de gusano, and ask whoever pours you one where they buy theirs, you will get pointed somewhere quieter and better.
Weekend on Cerro de la Bufa. On a day off, families ride or drive up La Bufa for the air, the view and space to let kids run around the monument and the chapel, then head back down for a late lunch. It doubles as a tourist sight, but the Saturday and Sunday crowd up there is mostly local.
Plaza de Armas and the Alameda in the evening. After dusk, people simply sit out, on the plaza in front of the cathedral, along Hidalgo, and on the benches of the Alameda, with a coffee, an ice cream or a paleta while the students spill out. That slow evening drift is the real local pastime here. A nieve (water-based ice, tuna-cactus and local fruit flavors) from a plaza cart is the move.
Panadería runs. Locals stop at neighborhood bakeries for pan de pulque and conchas in the morning and again around sunset. Grab a tray, use the tongs, and eat one warm on a bench.
What a friend who lives here would tell you
Eat your street food at the market where it is freshest and cheapest, not on the pretty restaurant terraces, and save sit-down meals for the regional plates you can’t cook at home. Order the local stuff, drink mezcal neat rather than in cocktails, and let a bartender steer you to the next bar. For the dishes by name and where to find them, see food; for the mezcal thread across the whole trip, mezcal.