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New Braunfels eats like the German-Texan river town it is, and the table that matters stands in Gruene: the Gristmill River Restaurant & Bar, fifty years of chicken-fried steak served inside the brick ruin of an 1878 cotton gin under the water tower, with Gruene Hall — Texas’s oldest continually operating dance hall, where Willie Nelson and George Strait played — next door as the after-dinner plan. Downtown, Krause’s Biergarten pours the town’s German inheritance and Muck & Fuss handles the burger argument.
The luxury chapter is dated 2027: Tim Love’s Paloma Suerte — the Fort Worth Stockyards Tex-Mex — anchors the SpringHill Suites River Village development, topped out in mid-2026 and opening early next year. Until then, book the Gristmill on OpenTable, take the river, and let Gruene Hall finish the evening; San Antonio is thirty miles down I-35, Austin forty-five up it.
The Gristmill River Restaurant & Bar in Gruene - fifty years of Texas cooking inside the ruin of an 1878 cotton gin, with Gruene Hall, the state's oldest dance hall, next door. Book on OpenTable; the wait moves fast.
Early 2027, per the developer - Tim Love's Tex-Mex flagship anchors the SpringHill Suites River Village hotel on I-35, which topped out in mid-2026. Until then the original operates in Fort Worth's Stockyards.
Easily - about thirty miles from San Antonio and forty-five from Austin on I-35. Come for the river by day, Gruene for dinner and the dance hall by night.
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