On July 10, a new 18-hole mini golf course opened across from 1100 Springs Plaza with holes themed around San Antonio landmarks and Pearl's brewing history. It costs less than a movie ticket and stays open until 11 p.m. If you live anywhere between downtown and Hildebrand, that single opening is a decent proxy for what the whole corridor is doing this summer: filling in the gaps between the anchors, one small storefront at a time, before a much larger construction wave lands next year.
That is the thesis worth holding onto as you plan the next few weekends. The dining rooms, bars, and courses opening in July 2026 are not isolated launches. They are the last quiet season on Broadway before Oxbow's expansion doubles Pearl's footprint by the end of the year.
The 109 W. Grayson complex is doing quiet work
A new dining complex at 109 W. Grayson has become the summer's most productive address. Three tenants are already trading there and they are aimed squarely at the after-work and post-Spurs crowd rather than the tourist trade a block south.
Stout House Grayson opened near Pearl and quickly became a hotspot for ice-cold beer and Spurs game watch parties at 109 W. Grayson St. Two doors down, Lone Star Burger Co. shares the same complex as Stout House Grayson and Milk Pizza Shop, and has made a name for itself with loaded Texas Wagyu burger specials and a standout pecan pie milkshake at 109 W. Grayson St.
Three tenants sharing a courtyard is not usually news. It is here because Grayson has spent a decade as the "you park and walk to Pearl" street. It now has enough gravity to hold you before you cross Broadway.
Pearl Putt, Gustav's Geysers, and the case for the north lawn
Pearl's programming this summer is unusually kid-heavy, which matters if you have been avoiding the plaza on Saturdays because it reads like a wedding venue.
Pearl is debuting a new 18-hole mini golf course inspired by San Antonio's most iconic landmarks, opening Friday, July 10, 2026 at 10 a.m. across from 1100 Springs Plaza and open daily from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m., with tickets at $12 for adults and $10 for children 12 and younger. The evening hours are the interesting detail. This is not a daytime attraction competing with the pool. It is meant to catch families coming out of dinner at Pullman Market or Cured.
A few doors of programming stack on top of it. Gustav's Geysers at Pearl Park offers water activities to cool down from the summer heat, and 1100 Springs Plaza has shaded picnic space nearby. The Children's Entrepreneur Night Market runs Wednesday, July 15 and August 19 from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.
If you have friends visiting with kids and you were going to send them to the zoo, send them here first.
What Pearl Fest quietly told us about the district's ambition
In May, Pearl staged its first namesake music festival, and the lineup was the point. Pearl Fest featured more than 15 bands performing across multiple stages throughout the district, headlined by Los Lonely Boys with Nicky Diamonds, mypilotis, Girl in a Coma, and others from San Antonio, Austin and the Hill Country. Free live music began at 11 a.m. during Pearl's weekly farmers market, with additional performances at Hotel Emma, Otto's Ice House, Yellow Rose, and other venues across the area. After the main performances, official Pearl Fest after-parties began at 10 p.m. at Jue Let and Cape Bottle Room.
The programming choice is worth pausing on. Girl in a Coma is a South Side story. Los Lonely Boys is a Texas story. Pearl booked both and staged the after-parties at bars that neither the tourist crowd nor the Sunday brunch crowd typically finds. That is a district trying to be the local answer to a South by Southwest weekend rather than a curated retail complex.
Across the river, the footprint is about to double
Here is the piece most weekend-scale coverage skips. The reason 2026 is a strange, thin, in-between summer at Pearl is that Oxbow is preparing the largest single expansion the district has ever seen, on the other side of the river.
By the end of 2026, Oxbow Development Group, a subsidiary of Pearl owner Silver Ventures, is set to double the footprint of the destination on property it owns both across the river and just north of Pearl, adding 682 apartments, a 166-room hotel, parking garages and about 70,000 square feet of space for more restaurants, bars and offices, along with more bridges across the river, closed-off streets, and small parks.
Oxbow's Bill Shown framed the point plainly: "All of this is in the vein of connectivity," he said. "What can we do to really stitch everything back together?"
The scale is worth setting against the rent picture the same reporting produced. According to CoStar for Q1 2026:
| Location | Average market rent |
|---|---|
| Apartment at Pearl | $2,649 / month |
| Within 1 mile of Pearl's main plaza | $1,888 / month |
| San Antonio area overall | $1,246 / month |
The average market rent for an apartment at Pearl is $2,649 a month compared with $1,888 within 1 mile of its main plaza and $1,246 across the San Antonio area, with retail asking rent at $22.34 per square foot in Q1 compared with $19.46 across the area.
Read those three numbers together. Pearl rent is more than double the metro average and roughly forty percent above the ring one mile out. Adding 682 apartments in the same footprint does not automatically pull that number down, but it does change who lives on your block if you are already inside that one-mile ring.
The construction is not hypothetical. Construction has already begun on Coopers Row, a 263-unit complex at East Elmira and Schiller streets, named for the coopers who once worked at Pearl Brewing Co., with 257 apartments and six live-work spaces with areas that can be used as storefronts.
The rest of Broadway is not sitting still
Further up the corridor, two other projects are shaping how the drive north will feel by next spring.
Near Pearl, construction is underway on the first phase of the Terry Black's BBQ restaurant and hotel project, which is expected to bring the Texas barbecue brand to San Antonio while also adding a boutique hotel and additional commercial space. The site is at 2100 Broadway, where the family behind Terry Black's Barbecue plans to build two restaurants, a hotel and parking.
A little further north, the proposed Broadway East San Antonio project, known as BESA, received initial approval of design plans in early 2025, with the large-scale mixed-use development near Pearl expected to include residential, retail, office and hotel space as part of an effort to bring more density and walkability to the growing corridor.
Meanwhile a Broadway fixture went dark. Good Time Charlie's Bar and Cafe shut down after more than 45 years in business, a staple for many San Antonio families and college students over the decades. If you have been meaning to introduce a friend to a longtime corridor spot, take that as a nudge to check the ones you assume will always be there.
Elsewhere on the map, worth a detour
A few openings outside the immediate Broadway strip are worth putting on the July list.
- Merci Jones, River North. The bar had been in the works in River North for nearly two years and proved to be worth the wait; if Double Standard and Barbaro had a baby, it would be Merci Jones.
- Adair Kitchen, in the former Jim's space. Adair Kitchen quietly debuted in March in the space that once housed a decades-old Jim's, with the Houston-based chain keeping it classic across breakfast, lunch and dinner menus, plus boozy cocktails including their frozen gin and tonic.
- JuiceLand, Alamo Heights. Locals craving smoothies from the Austin-based chain finally got their chance when San Antonio's first JuiceLand opened in the Alamo Heights neighborhood in May.
- Southtown Food Hall, Alamo Street. Chef Johnny Hernandez is converting his warehouse on Alamo Street into a new food hall opening in early 2026, hosting spots including Burgerteca, the Fruteria and Southtown Coffee.
- Dos Cantinas at Rivercenter. Chef Jason Dady's 25,000-square-foot revamp of the Rivercenter Mall food court features a speakeasy, bakery, fruteria, full-service Tex-Mex restaurant, and a 300-seat bar named Dos Cantinas at 849 E. Commerce St.
A short list for the next few weekends
If you have a free Saturday between now and September, here is the order I would run these in.
- Start at the farmers market at Pearl, then walk Pearl Putt before the afternoon heat.
- Lunch at Milk Pizza Shop or Lone Star Burger Co. at 109 W. Grayson.
- Detour to Merci Jones in River North for an early cocktail.
- Drive the Broadway stretch from Hildebrand back down to the Museum Reach and look at the Coopers Row and Terry Black's sites. In six months the sight lines are going to be different.
That last step is the one I would not skip. The Broadway you drive today is not the Broadway you will drive in July 2027, and the specific corners that are about to change are visible right now if you know where to look.
If you own near the corridor and are thinking about what any of this means for your block, or you are already casually watching what an Oxbow-adjacent block does to values, Sold in San Antonio tracks these shifts for a living. Schedule a free consultation and we will walk through what is landing next.
