The drive-through line was snaking around a bend on a recent Friday at Tucker’s Barbecue in Raymondville. A Texas Department of Public Safety vehicle pulled up and dotted the line. Michael Guerrero kept the pit fire going as his wife, Cissy, and her staff worked through orders hanging on a wire with clothespins. “It has been tough,” Cissy Infante Guerrero said of dealing with COVID-19 challenges. “Our business has been…
The walls at Skinny Fish are sandy beige with beach blue water tones to make it a chill place. It’s how Mike Mares describes the ceviche restaurant he and his wife Rosa own in Brownsville. Skinny Fish is an alternative to the Mexican-style ceviche restaurants that are common in the Rio Grande Valley. Walk into Skinny Fish – a take-out only restaurant – and you will see options of healthy…
A top-to-bottom redesign of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission’s public website is live, offering users improved TABC search capabilities. Users now also have the ability to download application forms, and obtain quick and easy access to public information. The new site is the result of a more than nine-month redesign process relying on alcoholic beverage industry feedback. This includes those agency employees, state lawmakers and industry members. The site is…
Texas wineries and distilleries are facing a crisis. As Texas continues to navigate the COVID-19 pandemic, tasting rooms at hundreds of wineries and distilleries remain closed. This limits consumer access, negatively affects sales, impacts jobs and reduces tax revenue for local and state governments. Gov. Greg Abbott’s Executive Order closing bars had the consequence of forcing Texas winery and distillery tasting rooms to close. Industry leaders recently announced the launch…
Karla Ugarte and Juan Palma were coming off nine solid months of new business success when they reached for more in opening their second Keto Sweets & Treats. The husband-and-wife team were building from solid ground with the customer and revenue gains from their Alamo bakery along Expressway 77/83. Moving into the bigger McAllen market with a location near the always busy intersection of 10th Street and Trenton Road was…
It was a day before the Longhorn Cattle Company reopening and owner Bill Turner was raring to go. “The fires are lit and the beans are cooking,” said Turner on June 2, the eve of his barbecue restaurant reopening after weeks of COVID-19 closure. The San Benito mainstay business along the expressway is a destination restaurant in the Rio Grande Valley. The days of closure were long ones for a…
Adam Shidler stayed busy in the two weeks his Weslaco business was closed. Government-mandated shutdowns due to COVID-19 kept his downtown coffee shop temporarily shuttered. Shidler used the time to do maintenance and upkeep at Weslaco’s Daily Grind. Working in his shop, customers would see him inside and knock on windows and wave hellos. Weslaco’s Daily Grind’s customers missed their coffee shop – and the feelings were mutual. “Our friends…
Tape holds up a distiller’s and rectifier’s permit from the state to the front window of Jerrod Leon Henry’s emerging business. A gold 120-gallon copper still made in Tennessee sits inside of what will become the Rio Grande Distillery and Magic Valley Moonshine. It’s on Highway 100 on the outskirts of Los Fresnos. Traffic buzzes by on the way to Port Isabel and South Padre Island. Henry is bringing a…
For Andrea Bernes, it started with a question that would transform her bakery in the coronavirus era. “A customer asked me if I would sell her flour,” said Bernes, the owner of Linda’s Cakes & Desserts Specialty Shop. Bernes mulled that over. It was mid-March and long lines were forming at grocery stores as the COVID-19 crisis arrived in the Rio Grande Valley. “Then one of my suppliers asked if…
Mario Dominguez is a believer in the Central Texas style – and oak is the key. He starts the flame every Tuesday night at his hometown barbecue restaurant in Mercedes. It will then burn steady and sure for the next five days at The Smoking Oak. The line of customers starts forming before the noon hour at the BBQ restaurant on 546 Hidalgo Street. The oak burns slow, thus giving…