SUDDEN SHUTTERS

Popular San Antonio Mexican steakhouse quietly closes 2nd location

Tu Asador has closed its Encino location after two years.

A small San Antonio strip mall that has seen a string of Mexican restaurants come and go is experiencing more churn. Tu Asador has closed its second location at 1662 Encino Rio #100 near Stone Oak.

The Mexican steakhouse has only been at the address since August 2024, taking over the suite Tlahco Mexican Kitchen had held for two years. Before then, the spot was home to an outpost of San Antonio chain Tink-A-Tako.

It’s unclear when Tu Asador fired down the ovens, but the restaurant’s Google Business and Yelp profiles both list the restaurant as permanently closed, and the restaurant’s Facebook and Instagram profiles only list the original Castle Hills location.

The Encino spot is still listed on the steakhouse’s website, but reservations and online ordering have been disabled.The owners did not return a request for more information by publication time.

Tu Asador is a relative newcomer to San Antonio’s dining scene. During the COVID-19 pandemic, co-owners and siblings Regina, Emilia, José de Jesús, and Valentina González, — all employed in the restaurant industry — found themselves out of work. To make ends meet, they started a ghost kitchen serving carne asada.

The dish was a natural choice for the family. Patriarch José Luis González formerly worked as a cattle rancher and passed on his grill skills to his son, the younger José, now the current chef. With the addition of time-honored recipes from mother Sandra González, the business soon grew to a brick-and-mortar at 8055 West Ave.

That restaurant, opened in June 2021, remains a neighborhood staple, serving traditional fare from Monterrey. The steakhouse is known for its sometimes extravagant cuts (a $275 tomahawk is served with golf leaf). Still, there are plenty of more everyday offerings like flautas de res, enchiladas Suizas, and comforting fideo.

Whether or not the old real estate chestnut about location, location, location caused the Gonzálezes to reconsider their Encino venture is still unknown. For now, the family has remained hush-hush on all their platforms.

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Rejoin the Club

New owners rescue lively honky-tonk near San Marcos

Photo courtesy of Duett's Texas Club

Duett's Texas Club will welcome the public on Wednesdays while diversifying the business during the rest of the week.

A Central Texas restaurant and live music venue is coming back from the beyond under new leadership. Duett's Texas Club, in the tiny San Marcos-area town of Martindale, has been acquired by Mike and Vanessa Lain Torres and will reopen September 9.

Mike and Vanessa are the married duo behind the live-fire catering company Gold Epicure. They purchased the business from founders Ryan and Katie Grametbaur, who opened it in 2023 and closed it in March of 2026. To start, Duett's will only be open to the public on Wednesdays, with the rest of its days dedicated to private and special events, a press release says. It will also permanently house Gold Epicure.

It was clear to the Grametbaurs that the community did not want Duett's to close, and they even raised $7,930 via a GoFundMe campaign to offset their final debts associated with the business. In the initial closing announcement, recorded on video and shared on social media, they explained that they had been approached (though they did not say by whom) with a deal to run Duett's that was "too good to be true." The responsibility was larger than they expected or could handle, they said.

The Grametbaurs, who also previously owned the Martindale River Cafe, made the Duett's idea their own, naming the space after their daughter, Duetta. A detailed page on the club's website still dedicates a section to their backgrounds and vision, as well as sharing information about the building's history and 2019 restoration by Maury Domengeaux and Steve Schlossareck.

Mike and Vanessa Torres have committed to preserving the original spirit of Duett's, which the release distills as "part restaurant, part live-music club and part elevated Texas honky-tonk." Good food and "real country music" were important parts of the business' identity (although some decidedly non-country groups like LA LOM also took the stage).

“I cared about Duett's like an owner long before I ever had the opportunity to become one,” said Mike Torres in the release. “I cooked here, worked here, and watched people form a real connection with this place. Getting the chance to reopen it with Vanessa is something we do not take lightly.”

Still, the business will change to stay alive. Being open on Wednesday nights will ensure the community can continue to enjoy the space, while new uses take full advantage of the space.

“We are not simply turning the lights back on, repeating everything exactly as it was and hoping for a different result,” Torres said.

The space will get a new look by Antonio Bond, who founded Transplants Floral in Austin. Bond's signature is using flowers, leaves, and other natural materials to create dramatic decor with jubilance and an almost otherworldly edge. His task will be to enhance the building's history and the original vision of Duett's.

Finally, the reopening will launch Duett's-branded food products, starting with a steak sauce and dry rub, the release says. More information on the menu is coming, along with details about reservations, music programming, and more.

Duett's Texas Club is located at 420 Main Street in Martindale.

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