Valentina’s Tex Mex BBQ Is Indeed Closed in Buda

“The specific tenant tied to the Valentina’s project is no longer a tenant,” states the updated agreement issued by the Buda Economic Development Corporation, which oversees the Buda Mill & Grain development where Valentina’s is located, as reported by Austin Business Journal. The address has been available for lease since May, and the new paperwork notes that Buda Mill has to lease out the space within 180 days of the contract date, which was July 16, per the publication.

A rep for the Buda Economic Development Corporation confirmed the Austin Business Journal information and shared that “we are waiting to find out what restaurant it’s going to be.”

Let’s backstep and walk through what happened from the beginning: On April 25, Valentina’s co-owners and married couple Miguel (who is also pitmaster) and Modesty Vidal said that they were temporarily closing the restaurant, so that there could be a change in management and ownership. They set a reopening date of May 8, but that never happened.

In the temporary shutter announcement, the Vidals wrote that growing from a food truck into a sprawling restaurant “has proven more than we can manage, and we recognize and admit to the many issues and challenges” the business has faced. That refers to difficulties with alleged tip stealing at the restaurant and bounced checks to the point where the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour division is investigating the business.

At the same time, Austin Business Journal reported that Valentina’s owes $1.5 million to hospitality financing company InKind in senior secured credit, and $2.3 million for its rent and other businesses. When Valentina’s opened the restaurant in Buda, the city and the Buda Economic Development Corporation offered incentives to the business and helped it financially leading up to the opening. The updated agreement will offer new incentives to the new tenant.

InKind’s CEO Johann Moonesinghe was in the process of buying Valentina’s business from the Vidals, as he told Eater in May, through a separate-from-InKind restaurant group, RDM V Buda LLC. He also planned on paying the Valentina’s staffers backwages. In May, a “for lease” sign went up at Valentina’s restaurant. Since then, there haven’t been any updates. Eater has reached out to Moonesinghe and the Vidals.

Valentina’s began as a food truck in 2013 by the Vidals. They wanted to open a physical restaurant for quite some time, with a huge plan intended for the Menchaca Road truck location in 2017. That never came to fruition, but they turned their attention to the Buda restaurant, which opened in June 2023.