The owners of Bill Miller Bar-B-Q plan to move from their longtime headquarters in downtown San Antonio to the far West Side.
City Council will vote on Thursday to approve a sale of 57 acres of city-owned land at Highway 151 and Old Highway 90 to Brazos De Santos Partners on behalf of the Miller family. The descendants of Bill and Ila Faye Miller have owned the chain of restaurants since its start as a poultry and egg business in 1950.
The company has offered to purchase the land for nearly $3.1 million, according to council meeting agenda notes.
Bill Miller’s main offices and centralized kitchen is currently located on the corner of South Santa Rosa Street and East César Chávez Boulevard. County deed records show the company purchased the property from the City in 1987 for $380,000. The land, with improvements, is now assessed at $7.6 million.
In October 2020, Bill Miller Bar-B-Q filed plans with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation to construct a 335,000-square-foot, two-story building for its new headquarters. The cost for that project, which documents indicated was at a location on Highway 151, was estimated at $60 million.
The land is part of a 435-acre property the City acquired as a result of a legal settlement in 1999 and offered for sale as the Southwest Business and Technology Park. The parcel Bill Miller Bar-B-Q is offering to purchase would be the last to be sold. In January 2020, an independent appraiser valued the 57 acres at $3,053,000.
A representative for the company said it would not comment on the purchase or the planned move.
Bill Miller Bar-B-Q operates 77 restaurants in San Antonio, Corpus Christi, and Austin, with dining room and to-go service. The company owns the restaurant real estate and buildings as well as its headquarters facility.
In 1992, the company donated $1 million for the purchase of the former Fiesta Plaza Mall near its headquarters for the University of Texas at San Antonio’s downtown campus.
The Historic and Design Review Commission is set to hear on May 19 a request to demolish another nearby property at 503 Urban Loop, which a member of the Miller family purchased through DPMiller Investments in April 2020. The request outlines plans to raze the former home of Boys Town known as the Dashiell House for the construction of a multifamily development.
