Two historic buildings across the street from the Majestic Theatre have new owners and will soon house a Brazilian steakhouse already popular on San Antonio’s far North Side.
Trebes Sasser Jr., founder and CEO of Ridgemont Properties, acquired the Frost Bros. and Schaum buildings from GrayStreet Partners in August, announcing the popular Chama Gaúcha restaurant concept will open there in 2025.
Located at 217 E. Houston, the San Antonio-based churrascaria will share the block with carnivore favorites, Bohanan’s Prime Steaks and Seafood and The Palm.
The deal has renewed the hopes of downtown promoters and developers who have longed for a Houston Street that looks more like its heyday.
“I was very interested in these buildings because of their irreplaceable location,” Sasser said. The new restaurant made the deal even better. The previous owner negotiated the lease with Chama Gaúcha before Ridgemont bought the building.
“Chama Gaúcha is one of the top operators in San Antonio,” he said, citing revenue figures for its San Antonio restaurant in Stone Oak in the tens of millions of dollars. A similar all-you-can-eat carved meat concept, Fogo de Chão, is located nearby at 849 E. Commerce.
Ridgemont also plans to lease a vacant storefront space between the existing restaurants to another type of food and beverage operator.
In the building where Bohanan’s is located is a third-floor creative office space of 11,000 square feet, also available for lease.
Frost Bros. building
The Frost Bros. building, a four-story structure built in 1908, operated as the Orpheum Theater and later as the Princess Theater before shuttering in 1929.
It was remodeled for the Blum’s department store before the Great Depression and later became home to the high-fashion Frost Bros. department store which closed in 1986.
With an ornate facade and broad picture windows reflecting the Majestic marquee, the building most recently served as the headquarters of insurance firm, Catto & Catto.
Chama Gaúcha will occupy the main level of the building. On the second floor are Bohanan’s corporate offices and 6,000 square feet of vacant office space. The health care technology company, CaptureRx, is located on the third and fourth floors.
Schaum Building
The three-story, art-deco-style Schaum Building, where The Palm restaurant is located, was built in 1938. It is also home to cocktail bar, Bunker Mixology, and the San Antonio offices of the architecture firm Gensler.
Known before 1871 as Rivas Street, East Houston Street is one of San Antonio’s oldest thoroughfares and served as a booming center of commerce fueled by streetcars and foot traffic long before the flight to shopping malls and suburbia.
The brick-lined, two-lane street today is an active pedestrian area in the central business district and a draw for tourists and locals attending shows at the Majestic and Empire theatres.
But with a number of storefronts, and some buildings remaining vacant, the City of San Antonio and Centro San Antonio have, in fits and starts, worked to revive the area through retail pop-ups and events like Holidays on Houston Street.
In 2019, the International Downtown Association issued a proclamation recognizing Centro’s Activate Houston Street as a “best practice” in public space management. Within months, a pandemic extinguished all activity downtown.
But new food and beverage options have opened in the area along Houston, including La Panaderia Bakery and Cafe, Pinkerton’s Barbecue and a craft cocktail bar, The Rose.
Trish DeBerry, president and CEO of Centro SA, said the Ridgemont acquisition is a tipping point for Houston Street.
“It adds to the momentum and what we really all envision Houston Street could be,” said DeBerry said.
She expects the new 12,000-square-foot restaurant to turn Houston Street into a kind of “restaurant row.” Chama Gaúcha will attract visitors to San Antonio but also people who don’t live downtown but are familiar with the restaurant, DeBerry said.
The Frost Bros. and Schaum buildings are the latest of frequent divestitures in recent years by GrayStreet, a local developer that at one time had big plans for downtown. GrayStreet most recently sold the Villita Assembly Building in July.
Owners of dilapidated Lone Star Brewery site south of downtown, GrayStreet put that property up for sale in 2022, but also still owns several parcels along Broadway Street near the Pearl, including The Light building.
Ridgemont also owns and operates commercial real estate throughout San Antonio, including along Broadway Street and in the Pearl district, and has plans for a multifamily project in Alamo Heights.
But the Houston Street buildings are the developer’s largest acquisitions by scale, Sasser said.
He called the street a “premier district” with both private and public commitments to improve the area. Sasser even gave the group invested in the new property an aspirational name, Ridgemont Clutch Street Ltd.
“People refer, at least in the sports world [to] Houston as ‘clutch city,’ from some of their championship runs in years past,” Sasser said. “So I’m hoping that there’s going to be a winning run here on the street.”
