Post #776533 by Prikli Pear on Thu, Jun 1, 2017 9:19 AM

My husband's response to "There's nothing tiki in NB" = "THANK GOODNESS!" (he doesn't share my hobby. I TRIED...I tried SO HARD...I got him both Star Wars sets from ThinkGeek...but it's just not working.

We have passed Gruene River Grill a few times but never made it there. We have eaten at the Gristmill a handful of times until we realized we could do SO MUCH BETTER LOLOL. We used to love...oh, I forgot the name of it. It was in the basement of an old bank or the old City Hall or something? Had the vault and everything. Liberty something. Made it there 2 or 3 times and then they closed :(

Liberty Bistro. Yeah, that old city hall building is one of those cursed locations. Nothing that's ever opened there has lasted more than a couple of years. The Gristmill is the go-to restaurant in Gruene because 1) it was the first there, and sparked the whole Gruene historic district revival back in the 70s, and 2) it's got great atmosphere, built up amongst the ruins as it is. The food? Merely average.

The Wife and I, newcomers to tiki though we may be, both think a small, strategic tiki bar could be quite successful in New Braunfels or San Marcos, even though Austin gets all the love. There's so much tourist traffic that they'd do pretty well, but we're not restauranteurs/bar owners by any stretch of the imagination. The closest New Braunfels has is a couple of places that go for the surf shack vibe, and San Marcos doesn't really have anything (despite it's Aquarena/Mermaids history). Even Schlitterbahn could capitalize, and it wouldn't take much at all, but nobody asks me...