| After close to a decade of ice cream scooping, I was ready to strike out on my own. My glorious career in the restaurant business began at Maggie’s Restaurant on San Pedro, working midnight to 8 a.m. Cleaning dishes, mopping floors and scrubbing bathrooms. What a start. Fast forward past fifteen years of working my way from cook, waiter, bartender, and eventually manager, and I found myself married and the General Manager of what would soon be a successful Mexican restaurant. My wife and I had recently acquired land in Spring Branch where we hoped to build a home someday. While out on a Sunday drive to see it, I saw a vacant old barbecue place with a stone patio just eight miles north of loop 1604. Now, everyone who works in the restaurant business says their goal is to someday own their own restaurant. But that day I knew as I turned to my wife and said, “That one. That’s the restaurant I’m going to own”. Less than a year later, Casey’s Barbecue, which I had nothing to do with, opened in that location. Seven years later, I rang in the year 2007 as General Manager of River City Grille in Marble Falls, Texas. I still lived in San Antonio, and made the drive up and back on highway 281 five or six days a week, passing Casey’s, each time. I told anyone who would listen I was going to own my own restaurant in that location. If you happen to be in the car with me when I passed it, I made you wave. In early January 2007, I noticed the restaurant looked closed, no lights, no cars in the parking lot. In mid February I finally stopped. There on the door was a sign, “Closed for business. For leasing information call” and it listed a number. I waited about a week to call. On my birthday in March I picked up the phone and dialed the number to the people who held my dream. “We already have someone who wants to lease it” they told me. I gave them my number, and asked them to keep me in mind if things didn't’t work out. As fate would have it, after a couple of weeks, I got a call. The restaurant was still available. Negotiations began and in July 2007, we signed a lease. We Opened our doors to the Public January 1, 2008. And then real story began. |
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| David Lozano on how it all started, |
In February 1974, my father retired from the military. Three days
later, our family opened the first ice cream store on the San Antonio
Riverwalk. It was a place of wondrous sights, smells and tastes to my
then 10 year old self. Little did I know what an impact that would
have on my life.
later, our family opened the first ice cream store on the San Antonio
Riverwalk. It was a place of wondrous sights, smells and tastes to my
then 10 year old self. Little did I know what an impact that would
have on my life.
| Photo by Marvin Pfeiffer for the Bulverde News |