Sweet Treats

Artisan ice cream shop finally sweetens Hemisfair with second San Antonio location

Lick Honest Ice Creams is scooping its second San Antonio location.

Something sweet is happening at Hemisfair. On June 1, Lick Honest Ice Creams, an artisanal ice cream shop, will finally open its second San Antonio location, about six months after it was originally scheduled to debut.

Lick is famous for its use of locally and sustainably sourced ingredients to craft unique, seasonally rotating flavors inspired by Texas ingredients. For its opening menu, Lick will offer seasonal spring flavors tres leches, yellow rose and elderberry, and strawberry cream pie, along with menu staples goat cheese and thyme and honey.

Each flavor is crafted using 100 percent grass-fed milk from Mill-King Market & Creamery, a dairy located in McGregor, Texas, near Waco. Lick also offers gluten-free, dairy-free, and vegan options.

Lick will take over the Smith House, an iconic 720-square-foot structure no doubt familiar to Hemisfair visitors. In honor of the historic cottage, built in 1840s, the design "will emulate Lick Honest Ice Creams’ menu of fresh ice cream flavors and eco-friendly ethos while celebrating the architecture of the unique structure that’s been a part of San Antonio for over 160 years," notes a release.

“When we began searching for a second location in San Antonio two years ago we knew we wanted to be part of the energy and history of Hemisfair,” said Lick co-founder Anthony Sobotik in a release. “When I saw this house, I instantly knew we found Lick’s second home in San Antonio.”

Sobotik and co-owner Chad Palmatier founded the Austin-based Lick in 2011 before opening its first Alamo City location in the Pearl in 2014. The Hemisfair locale marks the company's fifth shop in Texas.

To begin, Lick's newest location will be open daily from noon to 9 pm. Customers may visit the shop to order by the scoop or pint or order online for curbside pickup. San Antonio residents can also enjoy free delivery once a week, depending on ZIP code. Go here for more information and to see if your neighborhood is eligible.

ice-cream openings

rating the ranking

Analyzing the Express-News' list of San Antonio's top 50 restaurants

Mixtli/Instagram

Mixtli is a James Beard Awards nominee for 2025.

Does San Antonio's dining scene need new energy? I kept asking the question when parsing through San Antonio Express-News restaurant critic Mike Sutter's recent ranking of the Top 50 Restaurants of 2025, a newly expanded format that adds another 25 contenders to the traditional top 25. Except for a few upstarts, it seemed to paint a portrait of a culinary landscape that's, well, stuck.

The top 10 list included six repeats from last year and the same top two. The four restaurants that dropped out of premier placement — Bar Loretta (No. 11), Aldo's Ristorante Italiano (No. 13), Cured (No. 15), and Bliss (No. 16) — still kept bragging rights. Only Chad Carey's Petit Coquin, coming in hot at No. 3, offered some surprise. But not really. Sutter gave the tiny French bistro a rare five-star rating in April.

This year's top 10 are as follows:

1. Mixtli
2. Clementine
3. Petit Coquin
4. Shiro Japanese Bistro
5. Cullum's Attaboy
6. The Jerk Shack
7. Leche de Tigre
8. Bohanan's Prime Steaks & Seafood
9. 2M Smokehouse
10. Brasserie Mon Chou Chou

To be clear, my vexation has nothing to do with Sutter. His witty work at the Austin American-Statesman helped form my approach to criticism when I began writing restaurant reviews for the Austin Chronicle. Nor is it an indictment of the restaurants themselves. I might have a slightly different personal top 10, but Sutter's picks have a chokehold on my top 25.

Sutter's intro paints a restaurant scene alive with possibilities. Certainly, San Antonio is currently fascinating the national press, Michelin Inspectors, and James Beard Foundation judges. He points to all these developments as a reason to increase the restaurants listed, split into a two-week rollout.

"So why split the reveal?" Sutter wrote. "We did it to drive home an inescapable point: San Antonio's restaurant scene has evolved far beyond the Top 25 rankings I started in 2023. Getting to 50 was the easy part. Keeping it to 50 was a beast."

But only seven of the top 50 restaurants were not already opened by 2023. After an electric burst of culinary activity from 2019-2022, San Antonio has seen few remarkable independent restaurants while huge corporate chains are gobbling up as much commercial real estate as they can. Economic realities have made running a food business more difficult than ever, but I'm starved for new projects offering refreshing points of view.

Even if the Express-News' latest list did expose a dining scene that's craving new ideas, there's still plenty to digest. Here are a few stray observations about Mike Sutter's top 50 restaurants.

Winners and losers
The biggest success story was the aforementioned Petit Coquin, which catapulted to the top 10 mere months after opening. The snubs were much more noticeable. We'll assume Sequin's Burnt Bean Co. didn't make the list because it is not actually located in San Antonio (we nominated it for a Tastemaker Award anyway). Still, one restaurant glaringly fell off the top 50 entirely. Nineteen Hyaku, last year's No. 18, was nowhere to be found, along with other Carpenter Carpenter concepts like Restaurant Claudine.

Whither Asian cuisine?
Sutter's list did include a few Asian standouts like Sichuan House, Madurai Mes, and Kimura, but San Antonio could use more culinary diversity. While one will turn blue waiting for a San Antonio H-Mart, surely San Antonio can support more than Panda Express? The recent outcropping of promising Chinese concepts — Duck & Dumpling, Ping's Sichuan Kitchen, and Luscious Dumplings — is certainly welcome.

Herding the golden cows
Sutter has never been afraid of San Antonio's culinary establishment. One of his first reviews for the Express-News was a thorough drubbing of the late Lüke, called a hit job by many. Restaurateurs who once dominated the city's culinary conversation, like Johnny Hernandez and Andrew Goodman, were left off the list. Only one of Jason Dady's many concepts, Tre Trattoria, earned a spot.

Michelin, Schmichelin
Michelin Guide recognition did not sway Sutter, with Little Em's Oyster Bar and Barbecue Station failing to make the cut. James Beard semifinalist nods also weren't an express pass to the newspaper's list. Best Quality Daughter and El Pastor Es Mi Señor both had chefs make the James Beard Awards semifinalist round, but that didn't guarantee inclusion by the critic.

Pearl plunges
San Antonio's Pearl, arguably the city's premier culinary hub, had a so-so showing on Sutter's roundup. Southerleigh Fine Food & Brewery, Brasserie Mon Chou Chou, Cured, Ladino, Supper, and (surprise!) The Culinary Institute of America's Savor were in. Best Quality Daughter, Full Goods Diner, Boiler House, and Carriqui were out. Only half of Pullman Market's restaurants were selected. Mezquite and Nicosi were the favored siblings over Fife & Farro and Isidore.

Small quibbles
When talking about San Antonio restaurants with a distinct point-of-view, it's hard not to think of Best Quality Daughter — a razor-sharp exploration of identity through food. Pumpers' anarchic spirit always exhilarates and is an antidote to the self-seriousness of some chef-driven concepts. And Il Forno and WonderSlice Pizza are both upper-crust.

express news rankings lists restaurants