COMING ATTRACTIONS

Favorite Stone Oak café plots 2 new San Antonio-area locations

Pan & Coffee is expanding to Boerne and downtown San Antonio.

A Stone Oak café known for its artisan breads is making a major San Antonio-area expansion. Pan & Coffee is opening two new locations at 27503 I-10 W. in Boerne and 1110 Brooklyn Ave. near downtown.

Husband-and-wife team Andrea and Roberto Rodriguez, along with in-laws Laura and Eric Lawitz, opened the concept at 19298 Stone Oak Pkwy in 2021, drawing on each of the family’s heritages. Andrea’s and Laura’s side owned bakeries in Mexico, while Roberto's father owned coffee plantations.

Though the cuisine had roots in Mexico, the foursome took a more international approach to their fare. The menu globetrots through molletes and huevos machacados, French quiches and sandwiches, Mediterranean salads, Cuban tortas, and a classic American grilled cheese.

Pan & Coffee's menu ranges from chilaquiles to croissant sandwiches.Pan & Coffee/ Facebook

The Boerne expansion has been in the works since August 2025, when the team filed Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation plans for a new 4,000-square-foot ground-up building with a spacious patio. According to renderings and construction updates posted on social media, the spot will be just as eclectic as the menu. Mexico-style breeze blocks are blended with a post-and-beam ceiling that nods to architecture of the Hill Country town.

While the Boerne location will be a showpiece meant for lingering, the restaurant group is also opening a drive-thru keyed to the busy pace of downtown. Signage is now up at the Brooklyn Avenue spot near McCullough, which will convert a former Bank of America branch into a drive-thru and takeout-only location.

Pan & Coffee has not announced the exact opening dates for either of the upcoming locations, but in a social media comment, it promised that the Boerne location would be up and running by the end of 2026. The restaurant did not immediately return a request for a more detailed timeline.

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SUDDEN SHUTTERS

Cheeky San Antonio pan-Asian restaurant to close after 16 years

Suck It: The Restaurant/ Facebook

Suck It is closing up shop after 16 years — including a decade in Medical Center.

One of San Antonio’s most provocative concepts is calling it a day. Suck It: The Restaurant will close its Medical Center flagship at 7220 Louis Pasteur Dr in Medical Center on December 31.

“There has been a lot of ups and downs over the last 16 years with Suck It, mostly lots of ups,” wrote an unnamed author on social media, presumably owner and chef Vinh Hoang. “With the current economy, rising prices, my family, and my health, I have decided with heavy heart to close @suckittherestaurant at the end of the year.”

Suck It has had a few different San Antonio versions, but always focused on Hoang’s pan-Asian fusion that combined phở and ramen with Asian tapas like his signature 420 types with bulgogi-style beef. The irreverent name came from its first iteration, a hookah lounge and bubble tea shop opened near UTSA in 2010.

Hoang kept the cheeky moniker when he opened the Medical Center restaurant in 2016. Since then, he has brought his signature irreverence to a bar and restaurant in St. Paul Square and an Alamo Ranch collab with Sari Sari Filipino Restaurant. The Louis Pasteur version is the only offshoot currently open.

Despite the decision to close the Medical Center outpost, Hoang has vowed to remain a part of the San Antonio food scene. In the post, he teased that he was considering ramen pop-ups with one of the many “talented chefs” he met over his career in San Antonio.

For now, he is taking stock of all the customers he met along the way, remembering the graduations, baby showers, and weddings he was able to be a part of.

"Many of my customers that came in to study while smoking hookah or drinking bubble teas have since become doctors, nurses, teachers, dentists, chefs, cyber security, I.T., and I remember one kid that eventually became @eldereats [aka local food personality David Elder ]," wrote the chef.

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