San Antonio's Chamoy City Limits to close shop, return to food truck business later this month

Following a string of burglaries and the departure of two neighboring eateries, the owner of snack shop Chamoy City Limits has had enough.

Chamoy City Limits' Ana Fernandez will close her store at 447 Hildebrand Ave. at the end of the month, she said in a social media alert to customers. She plans to return to operating a food truck and staging special events, which is how the business got its start nearly 10 years ago.

Fernandez will offer her over-the-top raspas and savory Tex-Mex bites from a food truck and pop-up style operation called Chamoy City Limits Express, the San Antonio Business Journal reports. The Express concept will become a part of The Point Park and Eats food truck park in Leon Springs at 24188 Boerne Stage Road after the Hildebrand shop closes on Nov. 27.

“I like to throw events,” Fernandez told SABJ Monday. “I like to throw parties … I’m realizing that I’m not into the day-in, day-out drudgery. I like to throw these big events where people come and it’s like a party. That’s what a food truck does. It transforms a space.”

The news of the brick and mortar shop's closure comes four months after Fernandez cut her operating hours — a decision she said stemmed from the closure Big Bob’s Burgers and Smack’s Chicken Shack, the anchor tenants in her store's strip center.

At the time, Fernandez told the Current the departures left Chamoy City Limits' staff feeling vulnerable after dark. What's more, her business had endured a rash of thefts and vandalism since the other tenants left. Thieves had taken cash, a generator and a rooftop air conditioning unit, forcing her to invest in additional security gear.

In her interview with the San Antonio Business Journal, Fernandez said the criminal occurrences haven’t slowed since then. Being one of the remaining businesses in the center open after 5 p.m. made her “a target" for criminals, she added.

“It's really astounding to me how much has happened, because I've been doing this for a long time, and we've never had problems ever,” Fernandez said. "Suddenly, we're averaging almost one incident per month.”

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