What Hunter Road Country Club Means for New Braunfels Locals

For most of the past year, the corner of Hunter Road and FM 306 was a construction site with a good vantage point. If you live in Havenwood at Hunters Crossing and drove that stretch toward Gruene, you watched shaded canopies go up, then patio furniture, then a sign that read "Coming May 2026" and, later, "No Membership Required." The building sat next to Dos Gatos Kolaches, the daytime bakery that had already opened in December 2025 and given the corridor its first real reason to stop rather than pass through. Whatever was coming next was clearly meant to pair with it.

That project opened its doors on June 8, 2026, as Hunter Road Country Club, a bar and grill at 1176 FM 306. The name is a joke, and the owners will tell you so directly. The concept is a casual bar and grill for people in the area.

A country club with a local feel

New Braunfels has a tourist economy, and Gruene sits at the center of it. The dance hall, the shops, the river tubers in summer: it's the version of this area that shows up in travel guides and gets crowded on Saturday afternoons. Havenwood residents already know this. It's part of why the neighborhood was built where it was, close enough to reach Gruene in minutes but tucked behind its own gates on wooded one-acre lots.

Hunter Road Country Club offers a different kind of stop along the corridor. Co-owner Chase Katz, who also runs Zelick's Icehouse in San Marcos along with Pie Society and Dos Gatos Kolache Bakery, told the Herald-Zeitung the name is a deliberate contrast to what people expect from the phrase.

"We're the Hunter Road Country Club, and no memberships are required. We called it a country club, but that's just kind of a play on what a country club actually is."

In comments to MySA, Katz described the concept as unstuffy and laid back, and as a comfortable place for people who call the area home.

Its opening is part of a broader change along the route between Havenwood and Gruene.

The corridor filled in while you were watching

Hunter Road Country Club didn't open into a vacuum. It's one of several additions to a corridor that's been filling in for about six months, and the pattern is worth naming because it changes what "close to Gruene" actually means for a Havenwood address.

The Sprouts opening is its own small landmark. It's the first Sprouts location in Comal County, a 23,395-square-foot store built at a cost of $2.3 million as part of the larger Creekside Town Center development. For a neighborhood that previously had to drive into San Antonio or Austin for that kind of grocery format, having it a few minutes down the same corridor as the new bar changes the math on how often you actually leave the area for errands versus staying local for them.

Menchie's is still mid-build. Permit filings put the estimated $180,000 renovation on a projected timeline running from early June to early December 2026, which means it's not open yet, but it's confirmation that Creekside's retailers see enough foot traffic on this stretch to keep investing in it.

What you'll actually find when you walk in

Inside, Hunter Road Country Club leans into the joke of its own name with wood-paneled walls, pool tables, darts, and a jukebox, the kind of setup Katz has described as a throwback to the 1960s and '70s rather than anything resembling a golf clubhouse. There's a large patio with an outdoor bar, which is where most of the traffic seems to land on a warm evening.

The hours run Monday through Wednesday from 3 p.m. to midnight and Thursday through Saturday from noon to midnight, according to reporting from MySA. Kids are welcome until 7 p.m., after which the space shifts to a 21-and-older crowd. Dogs aren't allowed, which is worth knowing if your evening plans usually include one.

The menu is scratch-made and priced like a neighborhood spot rather than a destination restaurant: a small Caesar salad runs $7, the HRCC Burger and Patty Melt are both $17, a Shrimp Po'Boy or Birria Grilled Cheese come in at $18, and the steak frites tops the menu at $32. Cocktails range from $11 to $16 and include a Country Club Margarita, an Espresso Martini, a Fresh Grapefruit Paloma, an Irish Maid, and a Tequila Old Fashioned. Community Impact's coverage of the opening also lists birria cheese fries, crab dip, wings, birria frito pie, and vodka Parmesan sandwiches on the appetizer side, which gives the food program more range than a typical bar-and-grill list.

Why this changes the drive from Havenwood

None of this moves a median price or changes a school zone. What it does is change what the drive between Havenwood and Gruene is actually for. Hunter Road Country Club adds another stop along that stretch, giving residents a nearby dining option.

That's a small thing until you're the one deciding where to grab dinner on a Tuesday, or where to send visiting family for a casual night out. A bar with pool tables and a $17 burger isn't going to show up in anyone's market analysis, but it offers a concrete example of what a neighborhood's daily life can include.

For Havenwood, the answer this summer is that it's filling in. Whether that trend holds through Menchie's opening and whatever comes after it is worth watching, but the direction is already clear.

If you're weighing what a neighborhood like Havenwood at Hunters Crossing actually offers day to day, not just on paper, that's the kind of ground-level detail The Renfeld Group tracks closely across New Braunfels and the Hill Country. If you'd like a clearer picture of how a specific street or subdivision is actually living right now, reach out and request a custom market plan.