Category: San Antonio News

A popular burger chain announced a new partnership that will expand its footprint across Texas and beyond, including in San Antonio. Fuddruckers has partnered with Brookfield Properties to open 10 new locations at malls in Texas and four other states. In addition, the company has launched ghost kitchens to capture more delivery and to-go business. In San Antonio, the new Fuddruckers will open at North Star Mall. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex will add three new…

The National Weather Service issued a Red Flag Warning until 5 p.m. Tuesday for Bexar, Llano, Real, Kerr, Bandera, Gillespie, Kendall, Blanco, Hays, Uvalde, Medina, Comal, Guadalupe, and Caldwell counties.

A Red Flag Warning means that the weather conditions will lead to high grassfire danger. It is very dry Tuesday afternoon with relatively humidity levels of 10-20%. Winds are from the north at 15-25 mph, gusting up to 30-35 mph.

It’s also been incredibly dry, so any fires that develop would spread rapidly. To avoid creating a fire:

No campfires or burn pilesAvoid using tools that create sparks like chainsawsDispose of cigarettes properly

As Russia continues to attack her home country of Ukraine, Sasha Podgorny, founder and owner of Oh My Nails!, talked to the Business Journal about the challenges of running her business during this volatile time.

The San Antonio Zoo is answering the call of the wild for so many families on Spring Break.

There are special events presently going on through March 20 and behind-the-scenes, there is an extensive expansion project in the works.

“It is an exciting time to be at the San Antonio Zoo. We’re doing Jungle Boogie Break right now, which goes from March 5 through the 20th, and it’s just an exciting variety of live music, dance parties, food, drinks, everything that you want from a zoo,” Cyle Perez with San Antonio Zoo said.

So while the zoo may be hosting the Jungle Boogie Break right now, in the background is a more than $60 million project.

“We’ve had the same entrance since around the 1950s, and it’s kind of just a bit outdated. A lot of that has to do with ADA accessibility, but also really crafting it to be something that’s interactive and exciting that really reflects the community we live in,” Perez said.

The project, however, is not just a remodel, and there could be a large expansion as well.

“We own property to the west of Highway 281, where we did the Dragon Forest last year, where we got to utilize that piece of property. But not a lot of people know that there’s a whole section to San Antonio Zoo that’s about to come out,” Perez said.

And with that section comes bigger exhibits.

“We also have a gorilla habitat that’s coming, which is just going to be larger than life. We’re aiming to make it the largest one in the US,” Perez said.

Right now the San Antonio Zoo is still in the fundraising phase, but the plan is called “Generation Zoo”.

If you are headed to the zoo through March 20, just remember that St. Mary’s Street is one-way from west to east — and that one way traffic can park at either the parking garage or at the zoo train depot.

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She launched a jewelry company now valued at $1 billion. She received the national EY Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2017. Two years later, she was inducted into the Texas Business Hall of Fame. And she’s been a guest “shark” on ABC’s Shark Tank. And just last week, she released a bridal capsule collection in collaboration with a local blogger. Kendra Scott, founder of the Austin-based jewelry company that bears her name, reigns as…

The Pearl Stable building is set to become a 1,000-seat “world-class” music venue next spring, the Pearl announced on Tuesday.

In announcing “the next chapter in San Antonio’s iconic music story,” officials said the venue, dubbed Stable Hall, will also have an accompanying outdoor biergarten.

Both the music venue and biergarten are slated to open in the spring of 2023.

The goal is for Stable Hall to become a “marquee music destination and showcase for national, regional and local talent,” the release states. In doing so, the Pearl picked notable music buyer Jay Sweet to handle the bookings and WoodHouse to operate the venue.

The Pearl said it will attract a variety of genres like pop, indie, Latin, blues and R&B.

“Stable Hall is San Antonio’s newest oldest music venue. This venue will capture the authenticity of historic dance halls in the country and usher the next chapter of music in San Antonio by honoring the roots of our region and showcasing the best in live music,” Elizabeth Fauerso, CEO of Pearl Commercial, said in the release.

“… With a commitment to celebrating the joy of live music while honoring musicians and their craft, Stable Hall will be a place for us to gather in the shared joy of music.”

According to the release, Stable Hall will include a “Jewel Box Stage” in front of floor seating and a curved balcony.

The venue will have wooden floors, hand-painted murals, a restored wood ceiling, and a green room for performers, in addition to bars and pre-show areas

San Antonio and Austin-based architects Clayton Korte and Austin-based interior design firm Joel Mozersky Design are heading the redesign.

For the biergarten, it will be open for people before the shows or on any other occasion, the release states. Other than craft beer, it will also serve “traditional Texan and German Hill Country fare” like kolaches, bratwurst and pretzels.

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As San Antonio firefighters worked to put out a fire in a building under construction just east of downtown, they also were concerned about the impact it might have to the homes of some people nearby.

They found the wooden frame of what were going to be loft apartments, at the corner of Center Street and N. Swiss, fully engulfed in flames when they arrived around 3 a.m. Tuesday.

RELATED: Apartment building under construction east of downtown burns to ground

The fire crews, who had just put out another fire nearby, quickly realized this one had a head start. Parts of the structure were beginning to collapse, so all they could do was fight the fire from the outside.

“Our main focus was making sure that building (next door) didn’t catch fire, and also evacuating the tenants,” said Battalion Chief Tony Rodriguez with SAFD.

Rodriguez said firefighters helped usher about 20 people out of the occupied building across the street from the burning one, as a precaution.

Arlene Nichols says she and her family got a knock on their door from a neighbor.

“My husband woke me up and everything was just orange,” she said. “We don’t have blinds in our home so everything just looked orange. It was hot inside.”

Ultimately, she and her neighbors were allowed to return to their homes.

However, she realized that things were not like they had left them.

“All our windows are broken,” Nichols said. “Just the heat, yeah. It did a lot of damage.”

Her car, which was parked on the street between her building and the one that burned, also showed signs of coming too close to the fire’s intense heat.

It melted the lights and scorched the paint on the vehicle.

Two plastic garbage cans outside her building also melted.

The fire burned through utility poles, bringing down live power lines.

Crews with CPS Energy quickly arrived to turn off the electricity and begin making repairs.

There were no injuries from the fire.

Arson investigators are still trying to determine how it started.

With only three days left to vote in the first round of the San Antonio Business Journal’s Inno Madness, which startups will advance to the next round?

An outdoor biergarten will complement the 1,000-seat venue