DINING FEATURE
BY ERIC WEILBACHER
TUBE, DINE AND STAY At the Lone Star Float House & Grill, customers can do more than enjoy the food and libations. They can bring a lawn chair and hang out in the Guadalupe River, rent inner tubes and catch a shuttle upstream to oat back down the river to the restaurant, and stay the night in one of the cabins. • Tubes are $25 per person, including parking and a shuttle ride. • With personal equipment,
Terry Gillespie opened the Lone Star Float House & Grill in 1999.
ERIC WEILBACHER COMMUNITY IMPACT
shuttle rides are $25 on weekdays and $50 on weekends.
The restaurant was put together with volunteer labor and spare donated construction materials.
ERIC WEILBACHER COMMUNITY IMPACT
Lone Star Float House & Grill Restaurant tested by oods and built by family and friends W hen Terry Gillespie bought riverfront prop- erty on the Guadalupe washed away, and he didn’t have ood insurance.
All hamburgers served (starting at $10) are a half-pound and never frozen.
COURTESY LONE STAR FLOAT HOUSE & GRILL
Lone Star Float House & Grill 7430 River Road, New Braunfels 830-907-3866 www.lonestar oathouse.com Summer season hours: 10 a.m.-8 p.m. daily through Labor Day
Gillespie said the burgers are all half-pound, never frozen and hand-pressed. Cuban and fried cat sh sand- wiches are on the menu along with Texas cheesesteak and more. Live music every Sunday and ample room to wade into the Gua- dalupe River are part of the charm. Lone Star Float House & Grill also rents tubes for oating the river and drops o tubers upstream. There are also cabins to rent on the property and at Oak Hill River Inn, a sister business nearby. “You can stay here, rent tubes and eat here,” Gillespie said. “You don’t have to drive. We take you up [river], and you oat back to here.”
“Because everybody said the ‘98 ood was a 500-year ood, so why bother?” he said. Donations and volunteer e orts by friends put the new structure together, reopening in 2003. “So we built the whole place by borrowing, friends helping [and] donations, like the barn tin on the side of the building was from a chicken barn in Gonzales,” he said. The grill used in the kitchen— built in the 1970s—was from a for- mer Sip-N Sup in New Braunfels. “We always say that grill has a heart and a soul; that’s what makes our burgers so good,” he said.
River where an old house washed away from the 1998 ood, he saw an opportunity to open a small restaurant and venue. However, the rst small building for the Lone Star Float House & Grill—which opened in 1999—didn’t have long to serve guests. “We bought the property in 1999 and built a small place that was open for three years,” Gillespie said. “The 2002 ood—if you’re a local you know about that ood—was probably higher than the ceiling fans [on the deck].” Gillespie said that building also
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NEW BRAUNFELS EDITION • JUNE 2023
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