Just a Taste: Raise a glass for Krause’s Cafe in New Braunfels
By Mike Sutter, Staff Writer – MySA
Photo: Mike Sutter /San Antonio Express-News Clockwise from left: A Reuben sandwich with house-fried potato chips, a sausage sampler with pickles and cheese, jägerschnitzel with mushroom gravy, mashed potatoes and red cabbage and a pretzel with beer cheese (center).
Location: 148 S. Castell Ave., New Braunfels, 830-625-2807, krausescafe.com
Hours: 11 a.m.-10 p.m. or later Monday-Saturday, depending on business.
On the menu: Appetizers (deviled eggs, pretzels, wings, potato poppers, etc.), $5-$8; soups, $3-$5; salads, $8-$9; sandwiches, $7-$11; burgers, $10-$13; sausage sampler and plates, $8-$11; schnitzel, fried chicken and other entrees, $11-$18; lunch specials, $9.95. Seventy draft beers, plus wine and cocktails starting at $4.
Fast facts: Krause’s Cafe is the resurrection of a family-run diner that operated in New Braunfels from 1938 until the early 2000s, but this time with an elegant, open-air biergarten under a modern quonset-hut canopy like a futuristic trade pavilion. Owners Ron and Carol Snider modernized and freshened the building from the polished concrete floors to the limestone columns to the gabled rafters, with a menu that pays homage to the town’s German heritage and also embraces cafe standards like fried chicken and burgers.
Need a German beer fix? Choose from 12, including Hofbräu Dunkel and Erdinger Weissbier. Something closer to home? Krause’s promotes Houston, Dallas, Austin and San Antonio with enthusiasm, plus a crisp Guadalupe River Rye’d from Guadalupe brewing in New Braunfels.
Impressions: Krause’s shows potential with a proper Reuben built from their own corned beef on hearty rye with sauerkraut, Swiss and sweet dressing served with thick, house-fried potato chips. And I challenge you to find a better sausage sampler for $8, this one built with cheddar, bread-and-butter pickles and sausages from V&V in Lockhart, Miller in Llano and Granzin’s in New Braunfels.
Krause’s moves well beyond beer snacks with a crisp veal jägerschnitzel with robust gravy in full mushroom bloom and sides of red cabbage and mashed potatoes. Ron Snider said he plans to add breakfast in March, adding to a schedule that also includes the New Braunfels Farmers Market with 70 vendors in the cafe’s parking lot every Saturday from 9 a.m.-1 p.m.
Twitter: @fedmanwalking
