Jeannie K.
Yelp
A dark, two-part restaurant with a speakeasy downstairs. The Female Foodie mentioned this bar/restaurant all over her posts as one of three top choices along the Riverwalk, and the reviews were solid on both Yelp and Google, so we chose this spot for our Sunday evening stroll at 8pm.
Cue in the attached picture about free parking near the Riverwalk in San Antonio: most loading zones are fair game after 6pm. There's even a free parking garage on Main St, FYI.
https://sanantonioreport.org/parking-in-downtown-san-antonio/
Back to this place. By the time we walked in, it was close to 8:30pm. The bar and booths are open seating and require ordering at the bar; the table seating requires going through a host/ess, who remained elusive, so we chose a booth.
The bartender whose name I didn't catch was both knowledgeable and nice. I was in the mood for a frozen margarita and he gave me a sample of both that and the frozen mezcal cocktail. The couple sips I got were boozy, but both batches were WAY sweet, and he agreed; apparently you're not supposed to put sugar in the margarita, and someone had dumped in a bag of it.
So I opted instead for a cocktail. I wish I had taken a picture of the menu, because the potions are complex.
I was in the mood for something refreshing and citrusy and ended up with a cocktail with pisco and cachaca, plus a dash of Fruitful smoky jalapeño atop a lemony and grapefruity base. It was heavy on the guava-front and turned out more pungent than I would've liked, but I still enjoyed it. $14 and 4.5/5. Well-balanced.
Neither of us was hungry, so we got a bison burger and a side of cheese grits. The bison burger took forever to come out, and we joked: Should we ask whether they've caught the bison yet?
But once it did, it came sitting half a foot tall, thanks to the pillowy bun, albeit with a slightly-smaller-than-usual patty (but I'm from Houston, and maybe portion sizes are different in San Antonio). That said, I had never had a more perfectly-toasted brioche bun, and the fried onion bits added the crispiest crunch. On the richer side than I would've expected from bison but exceptionally executed and paired beautifully with the house giardiniera. $19 and 5/5.
The side cheese grits were no sleepers, either: Not super cheesy but I didn't even miss it, as it more than made up for it in its creamy butteriness. It was not salty, which was a welcome change from most restaurants' grits, and the portion was nicely sized for the price point. $5 and 5/5.
Needless to say, we enjoyed our stop and sauntered down the stairs at the back, which led us directly to the Riverwalk. I recommend you do the same.