New business plans to bring variety to Seguin’s ‘Backyard’

Felicia Frazar The Seguin Gazette

A family venture is bringing food trucks, baseball, the great outdoors and more together in the middle of Seguin.

Freddie Leos, along with his fiancée Denise Marie, sister and brother-in-law Molly and Julian Rojas, is in the process of converting the former Lizzie Burges campus, 225 N Saunders St., and turning it into The Backyard, a food truck park surrounded by small businesses and offices.

Leos purchased the property from Seguin ISD with intentions of converting the former classrooms into corporate offices.

The COVID-19 pandemic shut the door on that idea, as larger businesses began scaling back expenditures, Leos said.

While talking with city officials, the topic of conversation turned to food truck parks. That’s when Leos said the idea came to him and his partners.

Then the ideas of making it a destination expanded to include indoor batting cages and small boutique-style businesses.

“The idea we started at the beginning was food trucks and baseball,” Leos said. “Once you have food trucks and baseball, people will want to rent these places and be here. Why wouldn’t you want to start you business in a place where there’s people already there?”

Along the southern portion of the property, the group plans to offer space for four to five food trucks on monthly leases with all bills included — including electricity.

“At $250 a month, we’re giving you electrical and water,” he said. “It is very inexpensive where you don’t have to run your generators. We’re going to make it to where you don’t have to hear all of that.”

Leos wants to keep the amount of trucks to a minimum to allow them an opportunity at success and to keep the park from getting overcrowded.

“My biggest issue is, if you have too many food trucks, they don’t make enough money because the people are spread out amongst more trucks,” he said.

Additionally, Leos plans to occasionally spotlight a food truck as time progresses to change things up a bit.

The idea is for the mobile businesses to commit to opening up shop from 5 to 10 p.m. Thursday and Friday and all day Saturday and Sunday, with the option to open Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, at their own discretion, Leos said.

The team is creating a small concessions stand near the bathrooms to serve beverages.

The group plans to scatter picnic tables throughout the yard and under a newly-built pavilion to give customers a place to sit and enjoy their eats, have a few drinks, listen to acoustic music and enjoy the outdoors.

“I think it is going to start off small and then it is going to expand,” Molly said.

Surrounding the large lawn are various classrooms, which the crew is converting into business suites.

“The classrooms will be rented out for retail or just anything,” Marie said. “We’ve had gyms call, salons, insurance, all kinds of stuff. Anyone that wants to come in. There is not a lot we won’t take.”

The back six classrooms have their own bathrooms, while the front spaces will share a community bathroom with customers.

The former cafeteria is in the process of converting to an indoor batting cage. The site is already home to the Barracudas’ select baseball team, but it can open to other teams and is versatile for other types of uses, Leos said.

“We’re going to put nets around the whole thing, one across the top and two or three nets down the middle where you can open them up or push them and leave it as one big open area,” he said. “The indoor batting cages will only be used in the afternoons, I would like to find somebody that would like to rent it out for yoga or something during the morning times.”

The combination of businesses will give parents something to do while they wait on their children from baseball practice, and give community members a one-stop shop for a day or evening out.

“Parents will have about an hour or two of just waiting,” Leos said. “They can go have an hour workout session, go get something done like their nails or their hair.”

“We can make it a destination,” Molly said. “Tell you friends, ‘Meet me at the Backyard.’

The group is hopeful and excited for the possibilities of what The Backyard can be.

“I’m kind of excited because it is something new for Seguin and it is new for us to do,” Leos said. “The biggest thing for me that I liked about the place was office space or retail, baseball, food trucks and alcohol. It’s a place that could have everything you’d want to do and it’s not far from downtown.”

The Backyard is both family and pet friendly and a place for everyone to just hangout, Marie said.

“This really is geared to all ages and people can be outside,” she said.

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