Mila Coffee, brewery joining new market inside Cavender Cadillac buildings in downtown San Antonio

By Ben Olivo | @rbolivo | Heron editor

A new food-and-beverage market called Make Ready, inside two former Cavender Cadillac dealership buildings off Broadway, is due to open this winter with a dozen tenants.

A brewery will occupy one of two buildings behind The Soto office building, 711 Broadway, and will be run by Pouring With Heart, a national bar company with 16 individually-named bars in Los Angeles, five in Austin, two in San Diego and one in Denver.

On Monday, workers were repairing the roof on the one-story building that backs up to Brooklyn Avenue. The bar will offer beer brewed there, as well as draft cocktails. The name of the brewery forthcoming, according to a press release.

A second tenant will be Mila Coffee, the popular pick up-and-go coffee spot that’s among the cluster of trailer shops that surround the former Broadway News on the 2200 block of Broadway. Mila Coffee will occupy a stand-alone walk-up spot along Avenue B.

“We are thrilled to take this next step and introduce more people to our brand of coffee,” Marco Cardel, owner of Mila Coffee, said in a press release. “Make Ready was the perfect place for our second location, because of the community gathering aspect of the project, the connection to The Soto office building and other nearby businesses, as well as proximity to the River Walk.”

Other tenants, which will be announced before the Make Ready market opens later this year, will comprise a food hall inside a second building that runs along Avenue B, and faces 8th Street. The words “made ready” are still inscribed above the building’s garage door, behind which the Cavender Cadillac’s “premium brand cars received their final clean and polish,” according to the press release.

The two buildings, along with The Soto, form a courtyard that can be accessed on 8th Street.

The Cavender family is partnering with Hixon Properties, a local developer, to develop on land formerly used for the dealership. The Hixon-Cavender partnership envisions a mini-neighborhood with housing, office and retail all mixed together along Broadway and Avenue B.

“I don’t want to go too deeply into the planning, but I will say that we spent over a year designing the concept we have in mind, touring the country for relevant projects,” John Beauchamp, Hixon’s chief investment officer, told the Heron about the market in 2021. “So what we will ultimately offer is going to feel very new for San Antonio, and it will bring the best of what we’ve seen throughout the country.”

The first phase of the development was The Soto, which was completed in September 2020, but saw its first tenants move in last year. The building, with its exposed timber columns, is now occupied by the Argo Group, Encore Bank, SHOP Companies, and Ulrich Investment Consultants. It’s unclear what percentage of the building’s six stories and 140,000 square feet those four tenants occupy.

The partnership owns six other properties along Broadway and Avenue B totaling 8.5 acres.

[ Archive: Hixon-Cavender partnership plans next phase of Broadway mini-neighborhood | Jan. 13, 2021 ]

[ Archive: Hixon-Cavender adds to Broadway holdings | April 14, 2021 ]

Heron Editor Ben Olivo has been writing about downtown San Antonio since 2008, first for mySA.com, then for the San Antonio Express-News. He co-founded the Heron in 2018, and can be reached at 210-421-3932 | ben@saheron.com | @rbolivo on Twitter