The Same Names Keep Showing Up in Downtown New Braunfels's New Openings
August 13, 2026
August 13, 2026
Walk down Seguin Avenue on a Friday night this August and you will pass at least three buildings that were standing before your grandparents were born, all doing something they were never built to do. The old city hall is now serving Peppercorn Filet Mignon. The Traveler's Hotel, shuttered for renovation since November 2023, is close to welcoming guests again under a different name. A feed store lot behind a 19th century inn has been quietly building award-winning burgers since 2018. None of this happened by accident, and none of it happened because outside money discovered New Braunfels and decided to cash in.
Look closely at who actually signed the permits and you will notice something that none of the individual restaurant announcements bothered to point out: it is the same handful of local hospitality families doing almost all of it. That is the story underneath the string of grand openings, and it is worth knowing if you live here and want to understand why downtown feels different this year than it did two years ago.
Old City Hall belongs to Wiggins Hospitality Group, the family operation that got its start with McAdoo's Seafood Company in 2009 and later added La Cosecha Mexican Table. Turner Wiggins, who led the restoration of the 1929 building, called it a project the team could not walk away from once they started.
"It's been nothing short of a labor of love for us."
The building itself has had a strange second act. Before it sat vacant, it had served as New Braunfels police headquarters, a World War II medic training site, and a museum archive, in addition to its original run as city hall. Wiggins kept the small table sizes intentional rather than maximizing seats, wanting the 200-seat space to still feel intimate no matter where a party gets sat.
A few blocks over, Prince Solms Inn tells a similar story with a different family name. Terry and Celina Muckenfuss bought the historic inn property in February 2017 and built out Sidecar, a basement speakeasy with live jazz, followed weeks later by Muck & Fuss next door, a burger bar developed with chef Kris Fuller. That was 2018. Now, eight years later, the Muckenfusses are doing something none of the other downtown operators are: taking their New Braunfels concept outward instead of bringing an outside concept in. A second Muck & Fuss location is under construction at 2422 N. Loop 1604 West in San Antonio, a $4.5 million, 8,812-square-foot build expected to finish by Sept. 15, 2026. Terry Muckenfuss framed it as a long-held goal rather than a chain expansion play.
"New Braunfels is just a short drive away, and bringing Muck & Fuss to the San Antonio market has always been a dream of ours."
The Faust Hotel adds a third family to the list. Lark Hospitality, working with the Duettra family and a group of local investors, is bringing back the property that first opened in 1929 as the Traveler's Hotel. The renovation trims the original 63 rooms down to 45 to make each one larger, adds a Texas brasserie called Wilhelm & Werner with a 130 seat dining room built around a skylight and an indoor outdoor fireplace, and tucks a Prohibition themed speakeasy called Walter's into the basement, alongside a Prince Solms Lobby Bar and a refreshed Magnolia Patio. Owner Andy Duettra described the project less as a business venture than as a handoff.
"We are honored to be the next stewards of The Faust Hotel."
Three separate ownership groups, three separate buildings, and the same underlying pattern: people who already run something downtown are the ones reinvesting in the next thing, usually inside a building old enough that most residents assumed it would never be anything but empty or municipal.
Terry Black's Barbecue does not fit the mold, and that mismatch is what makes it worth watching. It is the only project on this list run by an outside chain rather than a local family, and it is the only one landing in a building with no particular history. The 1310 E. Common St address most recently held Los Cucos Mexican Cafe, which closed abruptly in April 2024. There is no restoration story here, just a $5 million conversion into an 8,649 square foot space with an attached pit house and two story outdoor dining, targeted to wrap up construction by late August 2026, which puts the opening just a few weeks out from today.
What makes it locally interesting has nothing to do with brisket. Once it opens, Terry Black's will sit roughly a tenth of a mile from the original Black's Barbecue location that has operated in New Braunfels since 2018. The two brands share a grandfather, Edgar Black Sr., who opened the first Black's Barbecue in Lockhart in 1932, and a bitter family split a decade ago that sent brothers Michael and Mark Black off to start their own label under their father Terry's name. Co-owner Mark Black has said the city was a natural fit for the brand's next move.
"New Braunfels is one of the premier small cities in the state."
Whether that reads as competition or coincidence, it puts a national chain's arrival directly next to a family rift that most locals already know about, which is a very different kind of story than the quiet restorations happening three blocks away.
Old City Hall's early traction offers a small but telling data point. The restaurant opened dinner-only on Feb. 17, with plans to add lunch service later. As of an August 2026 listing, its posted hours run 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. most days and 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, meaning lunch service has already been added within six months of opening. That is a faster ramp than a dinner-only concept typically manages, and it suggests the demand downtown is real rather than a one-time novelty around the historic building.
Saludos, meanwhile, has settled into its spot in the Dittinger building with a menu built around shareable Latin plates and ribeye tacos, giving the San Antonio Street side of downtown its own anchor separate from the Seguin Avenue cluster.
The Faust Hotel is the one still finishing its arc. A spring 2026 target has already passed as of this writing, and the property has not yet confirmed a firm reopening date beyond that window, so it is worth watching rather than planning around just yet.
None of this changes anything about property values or listing strategy, and that is not the point of tracking it. What it tells a longtime resident is that downtown's growth right now is coming from reinvestment by people already rooted here, not from outside capital buying up storefronts. Three families who already had a stake in downtown decided to double down on it in the same twelve month window, restoring buildings that had been sitting empty or underused for years. The one chain in the mix landed in the one building without a history, and it happened to land next to a rivalry the whole town already knew about.
That is a different kind of growth story than most small Hill Country towns get to tell, and it is worth noticing while it is still happening rather than reading about it after the fact.
If you are watching downtown change and wondering what it means for a home you already own, or one you are thinking about eventually selling, The Browning Group knows this stretch of New Braunfels block by block. Reach out anytime for a conversation, no pressure, just local knowledge.
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