It takes one glance to know that Spurs fans have a home at Bakwood BBQ and More.
A giant San Antonio Spurs logo adorns the Eastside restaurant’s wall. Vernie Hurd’s family owns the establishment and a Spurs logo adorns his face, too, in the form of a temporary tattoo on his right cheek.
He’s a fan, but the Spurs are also good for business.
Demand increased by 500% as basketball fans flocked to the restaurant ahead of the San Antonio Spurs clash with the New York Knicks.
Hurd prepared five times the barbecue he usually does for the NBA Finals and it was snapped up by fans stopping at Bakwood BBQ, less than three miles from the Frost Bank Center on the corner of Commerce and Hackberry streets.
“We notice more people coming out before the game starts,” he said. “We have a lot of Airbnbs here. We have a lot of New Yorkers show up.”
“When the Spurs win, you see traffic out here,” he added.
Fans will drive down Commerce Street, honking and waving flags. Hurd said it’s as busy as other big downtown events, like Fiesta or concerts at the Alamodome.
It’s one of many businesses that has seen a spike in activity as fans from in and out of town gather to watch the final round of the NBA season. Many business owners are either incredibly busy as fans gather under their roofs, or quickly pivoting to make sure guests have a place to watch games and keep up with the action.
Bars are packed
It doesn’t matter if you are inside the Frost Bank Center or watching on television — it can be tough to find a seat for the Spurs’ playoff run.
San Antonio’s bar owners are happy to be a part of the excitement and to give people spaces to celebrate. But patrons can often wait hours to get a table.
Doug Ackerly owns Stout House, The Stetson’s San Antonio and The Hangar bars, all of which have been crowded by fans in recent weeks.
Stout House Grayson has hosted popular watch parties and has a 50-75% increase in sales on nights when the Spurs play, he said. The location near Pearl has plenty of TVs and a large outdoor screen. His other bars have had sales jump between 20-40%.
“It’s been such a fun team to watch. As a bar owner, I hope we go to Game 7 and win Game 7. As a fan, I hope we sweep the New York Knicks,” he said on Tuesday, before Spurs’ 105-95 loss in Game 1.
Jody Bailey Newman owns Friendly Spot in Southtown. She started to see Spurs fans show up before the regular season ended for the bar’s large outdoor screens. Now, Friendly Spot regularly hits capacity.
Hers is not the only bar with long lines on game nights.
“Southtown is becoming the local destination to watch the Spurs,” she said. “There’s no other place that has the cluster of local [owners] that we have.”
Both Bailey Newman and Ackerly have scheduled more of their workers during game days to meet increased demand. They also pay for additional security. Bailey Newman praised service workers across the city for creating great experiences for guests and customers.
Ackerly noted that some of his bars have days that are slower than normal between games. With an NBA finals game on Wednesday and Friday, Thursday may have less customers, he said.
But both Ackerly and Bailey Newman enjoy the feeling of unity they see amongst fans. It reminds them both of the Spurs’ championship runs from more than a decade ago.
“San Antonio has a culture like no other,” she said. “It’s good for the city.”
Meeting the moment
Not all businesses normally cater to sports fans. While some of Ackerly’s bars are well-suited for sports watching, others have different audiences. His Stetson’s brand is normally devoted to country music and has locations in Far West San Antonio and Helotes.
On nights when the Spurs play, though, customers only want one thing.
“We’ve been delaying our music and starting our music after the games have been over,” Ackerly said.
One of the city’s biggest pivots has been at Pearl. The development’s fine dining establishments might not typically be associated with sports viewership, but owner and developer Silver Ventures has organized watch parties with a giant screen at the Park at Pearl which attracted roughly a thousand fans for Game 1.
“Game nights bring an incredible surge of energy to the Pearl,” said Beth Smith, vice president of public relations and media for Silver Ventures, which owns the district. “Success doesn’t stop with the court. You see it ripple into the small businesses, shared spaces and the pride people feel gathering together here is like no other feeling.”
Smith said the public plaza was meant for gatherings like this — Pearl plans to hold similar events for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
The businesses at the development are responding. Ben Schwartz owns Wonderslice Pizza in the Food Hall at Bottling Department and sees fans gathering outside his doors.
“There’s absolutely no way it can hurt. On a random Wednesday, when there’s not much going on, it really helps,” he said, adding that he’s canceled Doordash and other delivery services during games.
“I’m trying to focus everything I can on folks who are coming in.”
Jeff Balfour owns Southerleigh Fine Food and Brewery and Brasserie Mon Chou Chou, two restaurants that would normally, he admits, not be places Spurs fans go to watch games. But they’re catering to the spectators with more outdoor seating and a few quicker dinner options.
“Typically on a Spurs night, especially an important Spurs night, we can actually see a significant drop in business,” Balfour said. “With the watch parties at Pearl, it’s flipped that around and made it where we’re part of the community.”
Schwartz hopes it brings San Antonio residents who might have never have gone to Pearl who might not otherwise go to the development. He sees old school Spurs fans come out, he said, and he enjoys serving them and meeting new customers.
Not just San Antonians
San Antonio residents aren’t the only ones showing up at bars and restaurants, though.
“We’ve definitely had a lot of out-of-town fans book the hotel,” Silver Ventures VP Smith said, noting that many fans were staying at Pearl’s Hotel Emma. “Obviously, a lot from New York, but they’re from all over the country and a few from international [locations] that are big NBA fans.”
Bailey Newman said Victor Wembanyama, the Spurs’ 22-year-old French phenom whose face adorns murals across the city, is even drawing visitors from France.
Balfour, owner of Southerleigh and Brasserie Mon Chou Chou, said roughly half the customers at his restaurant before Game 1 of the NBA finals were repping the New York team’s orange and blue.
It’s cheaper for their fans to travel to a finals game in San Antonio than to see a game at the Knicks’ Madison Square Garden. The Knicks are in the finals for the first time since 1999, when they were beaten by the Spurs, and tickets to Game 3 in New York are reselling at more than $7,500, according to the New York Times.
Tickets to Game 2 in San Antonio were just under $700 on Ticketmaster.
Smith hopes that the influx of visitors to San Antonio will boost tourism in the long run as they experience San Antonio during their downtime.
“It puts San Antonio on the map when we have events like this, and it brings us to light a little bit with the rest of the nation,” she said. “You hear guests from out of town that come in for these things go, ‘I need to bring my family back.’”
Shirts fly off tables and shelves
Even when San Antonians aren’t watching games, they’re still showing the Spurs love.
Some of San Antonio’s Academy Sports and Outdoors were open until 3 a.m. after the Spurs defeated the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals, according to company spokesperson Kelley Jones.
Many of those reopened at 7 a.m. and Academy Sports and Outdoors has seen an increase in foot traffic purchasing T-shirts and caps.
“As a result, our inventory has been moving quickly and is currently on the lower side, but we’re receiving shipments with new product consistently to keep up with demand,” Jones said.
Canopies and tents have popped up on Southwest Military Drive and on streets across the city, where vendors sell T-shirts, flags and cardboard cutouts.
Vendors like Joshua Acosta have been selling T-shirts for decades. He started selling T-shirts during the team’s first championship run in 1999. When the Spurs got hot this year, he started again.
“Especially on game days, it gets pretty busy,” he said.
Acosta said shirts have been so popular that even local vendors have started to run low. He restocked before the finals started, but options are limited. He often sources his shirts from local print shops.
Federal and NBA officials have cracked down on copyright rules for other finals. In 2024, the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center, Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection said they were monitoring sales and enforcing intellectual property laws around the NBA finals.
A study from an online sportsbook this year estimated that counterfeit Spurs merchandise cost the NBA $13.6 million this year.
Many vendors wouldn’t speak on the record or are wary of giving their names, even as flags fly above groups of tents and folding tables covered with Spurs-themed merchandise.
Some say there are ways around the laws by selling merchandise without copyrighted phrases or by using parts of logos. Many have been doing this for years.
The cost of living is going up, Acosta noted, and making a little extra money doesn’t hurt. He comes out with his entire family to sit under a canopy and sell shirts as fellow fans drive by, shopping.
“With the way everything has been, a little extra income goes a long way,” Acosta said. “It’s a big circle. The print shops, the T-shirt vendors. It helps everybody out.”
