Our story...

In 1969, David Straus turned 19c. historic buildings between Commerce Street and the river into River Square with the fabulous Stockman Restaurant. In 1984, Hap Veltman and Bob Buchanan assumed the restaurant lease and subsequently bought those buildings plus the one on the corner. They planned to have a Mexican restaurant at river level but needed to create more space in the bedrock footing the buildings.

Jackhammers and earth moving equipment chewed up the rock and removed it; a new foundation was created for the old, thick-walled limestone buildings. Now, the place needed a name. They asked their partner Tom Chambers of Fort Worth the name of the most popular Mexican restaurant there; he allowed it was the Original Mexican Restaurant. Buchanan was astonished. .

The Original Mexican Restaurant of San Antonio, founded in 1899 and closed in 1960, was across the river on Losoya Street. They were granted permission to use the name by the Farnsworths, that restaurant's owners. In 1988 the new Original was the third Mexican restaurant to open on the economically revived Paseo del Rio. It continues the tradition of serving San Antonio-style Mexican food in its lively river walk location.