New owners re-open Schoolyard for family-friendly fun
16 Aug 2024
Small Business, Quality of Life
Dalondo Moultrie | The Seguin Gazette
A pair of New Braunfels businessmen plan to open a sports bar and beer garden while growing the clientele where family fun already is on tap at a historic site in Seguin.
The new owners of the former Lizzie Burges campus and former family-friendly play area dubbed The Backyard are rebranding the site at 225 N. Saunders St. as Seguin Schoolyard, said James Mahan, one of the partners.
“My business partner and I bought it from Freddy (Leos) back in January. We opened the outdoor space in July,” he said. “From January to July, we spent time revamping the outdoor space, revamping the indoor space. We added some TVs. We redid the stage.”
Seguin Schoolyard opened in July and continues to provide spaces for various vendors in the former classrooms, Mahan said. Restaurants, a hair stylist, a running shoe store and more retail opportunities are either already at the site or scheduled for the very near future, he said.
An outdoor beer garden with added shade structures to help keep guests cooler during the warmer months opened mid-July, Mahan said. Families can eat, shop and play in the downtown Seguin space that could literally heat up when the place was called The Backyard, he said.
“That was something we recognized, too. It can get pretty toasty during the summers and stuff,” Mahan said. “Kids can play outside while you sit in shade.”
Live music and televised sports entertainment is something the owners are focusing on at the Schoolyard, he said.
Currently, there is no nice place in Seguin to enjoy sporting events, Mahan said. So he and his partner Greg Snider added several televisions to the indoor space that will serve as the sports bar and installed a 20-foot TV screen outside for guests’ enjoyment, Mahan said.
With Seguin’s fast-growing residential population, the partners want to provide a fun, commercial outlet for new and long-time residents as well as visitors to the city, he said.
“We wanted to find a unique opportunity to participate in the commercial side,” Mahan said. “For us, we feel like the Schoolyard is a very unique property.”
The pair also brought in a third partner to help provide high-quality food and drinks in the space, he said. Cody Couch of Cody’s restaurants in New Braunfels and San Marcos will bring the right tastes to add to Seguin Schoolyard, Mahan said.
The space is scheduled for a ribbon cutting ceremony with the Seguin Area Chamber of Commerce on Labor Day weekend, he said. The Schoolyard will boast live music, a college football watch party and live wrestling as the sports bar opens that weekend, Mahan said.
Seguin Schoolyard is open 4 p.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Friday and 11 a.m. to midnight on Saturday and Sunday.
“We feel like Seguin is at an inflection point,” Mahan said. “We feel like the downtown area is going to have a spotlight on it the next several years.”
He and his partners hope to be a part of the area’s shine for years go come.
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