OOHS AND AAHS

Terry Black's plunges into new bathhouse near San Antonio's Pearl

Presumably, Terry Black's upcoming bathhouse won't be filled with barbecue sauce.

Photo by Cloris Ying/ Unsplash

With a new restaurant and a boutique hotel currently headed to 2100 Broadway, Terry Black’s is already generating a lot of buzz in San Antonio. But its latest state project filings from the barbecue chain promise to create a bigger splash. Parent company Black Family Hospitality is planning a bathhouse nearby at 1411 Alling St. called The Depths.

According to new Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR) project details, the 9,800 square foot complex will include two hot spas, two cold spas, two cold plunges, a large linear spa, and a salt float. The bathhouse will also have a steam room, a cold mist room, massage rooms, and a high-end locker room with full spa amenities.

In August, Terry Black’s broke ground on the ambitious near-Pearl development, which promises San Antonio’s first location of the popular barbecue chain, underground parking, and a new hotel. Early plans called for a second restaurant, although the hospitality group has not publicly commented on what type of food it would serve.

With the opening of The Depths, Black’s follows one of 2026’s hottest wellness trends. According to Vogue and the New York Times, public bathhouses have become increasingly popular as consumers looked for more analog public gathering spaces after the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

San Antonio has yet to capitalize on the clamor on a large scale. In January 2023, Camp Hot Wells opened adjacent to the historic Hot Wells resort ruins, but the wine bar’s facilities are relatively small. It’s not clear whether The Depths will have alcohol. Many nationwide facilities don’t allow drinking.

According to the TDLR listing, construction of The Depths (if that is the final name) will begin in April and last through June 2028, but state filings are subject to change without notice. A request to Terry Black’s for more details was not immediately returned. Presumably, future guests will want to clean up any rib schmutz with a wet wipe before taking the plunge.

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SAFE SPACE

Surprising San Antonio suburb ranked 5th safest city in Texas

City of Fair Oaks Ranch/ Facebook

Fair Oaks Ranch leaders cut the ribbon on a new city sign.

Judging by the headlines, locals might think they need to carry a machete every time they go out for breakfast tacos, but a new report says the San Antonio area is home to one of the safest cities in Texas. Home security review site SafeWise has ranked the small community of Fair Oaks Ranch No. 5 on its recent list of towns unburdened by crime worries.

For its 2026 report, SafeWise factored in FBI-reported property and violent crime data for 343 cities, then adjusted it for population in order to fairly compare metros to rural and suburban towns. Although the rankings do provide a snapshot, the site says “a number of factors, including local agency reporting practices, community resources, prevention efforts, and lived experience all influence how safe a place is (or is perceived to be).”

Still, the high score gives Fair Oaks Ranch — located about 27 miles from San Antonio on the corners of Bexar, Comal, and Kendall Counties— plenty to crow about.

“Safety is foundational to our quality of life,” says City Manager Scott Huizenga, in a release. “This ranking affirms that our strategic investment in public safety and community partnerships is producing real results.”

The city cited its police department’s “We Go First” strategy, which combines an average two-minute emergency response with a focus on community relationships. According to the report, Fair Oaks Ranch has had a decrease in both violent and property crimes for two years in a row.

The rankings were released with SafeWise’s State of Safety survey, which found that perception didn’t always gel with reality. Although the statewide property crime rate of 23.4 incidents per 1,000 people is slightly higher than the national rate, Texas’ violent crime rate of 4.44 incidents per 1,000 people is consistent with the national average.

Still, Texans feel less safe than the average American. Only 49 percent of the survey’s respondents say they feel safe in the state compared to the national norm of 52 percent. 55 percent said they worry about their safety on a daily basis, a year-over-year increase from 52 percent. The data contrasts with first-hand reporting. For the second year in a row, Lone Star State participants said they have had few personal experiences with property crime and package theft.

Fair Oaks Ranch was the only San Antonio area city to make it to the list, which favored towns of 30,000 residents or fewer. The Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metropolitan statistical area had the most ranked cities. The full top 10 includes:

No. 1 — Trophy Club (Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington)
No. 2 — Parker (Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington)
No. 3 — Memorial Villages (Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land)
No. 4 — Melissa (Dallas-Fort Worth)
No. 5 — Fair Oaks Ranch (San Antonio-New Braunfels)
No. 6 — Whitehouse (Tyler)
No. 7 — Murphy (Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington)
No. 8 — Fulshear (Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land)
No. 9 — Colleyville (Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington)
No. 10 — Lumberton (Beaumont-Port Arthur)

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