LATE TO THE PARTY, BUT BETTER LATE THAN NEVER!
Why am I late to every party?
Apparently Alamo Springs Cafe reopened in December of 2024.
December. Of. 2024.
And I found this out approximately five minutes ago, as the crow flies.
Okay, not literally five minutes ago—but close enough that I feel personally offended no one came to my house, knocked on the door, and said, “Wendy. Alamo Springs is back. Get in the car.”
Because I have loved this place for decades.
I first discovered Alamo Springs Cafe with my dad, back when he had a house in Fredericksburg. It became one of those places I tucked into my soul and marked “Things I Must Show People”. Over the years I took friends there. Family. Anybody I thought would appreciate a place that somehow managed to be both completely unpretentious and utterly memorable.
Sometimes we would amble over to Alamo Springs for what has long been considered one of those great Texas burgers worth driving a questionable distance for.
My menu favorite? The roasted garlic and goat cheese appetizer.
Oh, that roasted garlic and goat cheese.
There are foods you order because you’re hungry, and then there are foods that become part of your personal social DNA.
That was one of mine.
Then came the Facebook post that said Alamo Springs Cafe had abruptly closed in July of 2024. Suddenly and without warning. Ugh.
That was that. Alamo Springs, we knew ye well. You will be missed.
Another beloved little piece of my Texas… gone.
Except apparently… NOT!!!
New owners reopened the cafe that December, and somehow this information failed to penetrate my little chrysalis of existence until now.
I am late to every party.
But Baby, the Cover Burger is Back!!
Last night some friends and I were trying to decide where to go eat, and on a whim I thought, “I’m gonna just check and see if anybody opened a restaurant in that space.” And low and behold! Not only had someone opened a restaurant in that space, but they did so using the the same name! The same menu! The same recipes! THE SAME EVERYTHING!
So over the river and over the hills we drove. My companions had never been there, so I was over-the-moon happy they were willing to make the long drive to seemingly the middle of nowhere. The official address is “Fredericksburg”, but in reality it’s a good 10 miles out of town along 2-lane road.
I am very happy to report that Alamo Springs still feels like Alamo Springs.
The atmosphere is the same.
The wonderfully casual help-yourself beer, tea and soft drinks situation is still there, (tho wine and margaritas must be ordered through the wait staff, so that’s a teeny difference).
The food is soul-deeply familiar.
The recipes are the same—or, dare I say it, maybe even a little better.
We shared a plate of outstanding fajita nachos, because apparently moderation was not invited to dinner.
Then came a basket of **frings**—half French fries, half onion rings, all proof that sometimes humanity gets things pretty close to right.
Each of us ordered the “Cover Burger”, 8 ounces of perfectly seasoned beef with all the fixings, PLUS avocado, grilled onions, and green chilies, served on a jalapeño cheese bun.
Because again: moderation had other plans.
Oh, how I missed this!
It was glorious.
Messy, enormous, wonderful, napkin-requiring Texas burger glory.
Our waitress, Indira, was just as cute as a bug in a rug. Every staff member encountered made us feel like we’d stumbled right back into an old favorite place that had simply been waiting for us to come home.
And Then There Were Bats
After dinner, full beyond reason and basking in the glow of such a meal, we wandered toward the parking lot.
There, we were greeted by a very friendly dog.
Obviously, we stopped for a visit and some scratches.
Because when a happy smiley dog appears, one does not simply walk past.
One of the people who worked at the cafe came outside to make sure the dog wasn’t bothering us—which was adorable, because we were, in fact, delighted.
And then…
the bats came.
Right next door to Alamo Springs Cafe is the Old Tunnel State Park, home to 3 million Mexican Freetail bats. I’d watched them emerge there before, years ago, but somehow the bats seemed to emerge a teensy bit earlier than I remembered, just in time for US!
We were standing there talking, they began streaming out.
Do bats behavior count as a murmuration? They seemed to almost move as one before scattering into the pre-dusk evening.
And the wonderful thing was that the cafe employee standing there with us had worked at Alamo Springs for six months and had “never actually seen the bats emerge”.
He knew they were there, of course. He’d even helped arrange for his sister to come out and see them.
But he himself had always been working when it happened.
Until that moment.
So there we were—a group of adults standing in a parking lot with a friendly dog, staring upward like children.
For about half an hour.
Nobody was in a hurry.
Nobody needed to check anything off a list.
We just watched.
Sometimes Texas Really Shows Off!
Eventually we climbed into the car and started the hour-long drive, eastward, back toward the Devil’s Backbone, where I’m currently house sitting.
And Texas wasn’t quite finished with us yet.
The horizon in the rearview lit up, then wrapped around us.
360 degrees of pink and gold and orange spilled over the Hill Country as we drove home, winding through tiny towns like Sisterdale, Kendalia, and Blanco.
I kept thinking about how ridiculously perfect the whole evening had been.
Good friends.
Fajita nachos.
An enormous burger.
A friendly dog.
Thousands of bats pouring into the evening sky.
A Hill Country sunset.
And the return of a place I’d thought I’d lost.
Sometimes joy isn’t some enormous life-changing event.
Sometimes it’s finding out that an old favorite restaurant has returned, and you’ve somehow been wandering around completely oblivious.
Sometimes it’s sitting around a table with people you love and eating far too many French fries.
Sometimes it’s looking up at exactly the right moment.
Alamo Springs is back, baby.
I may be late to the party.
But I’m very, very glad I finally showed up.