San Antonio just lost another restaurant, and it’s a cheekily-named Asian staple that’s been part of the food scene here for almost two decades.
Suck It: The Restaurant, a mainstay of the Medical Center area, will close at the end of the year, the restaurant announced on social media on Friday, September 11.
“Thank you San Antonio for an awesome 16 years. I started off as a hookah and bubble tea lounge near UTSA in 2010. I met so many amazing people and had a chance to be a part of your lives. Many of my customers that came in to study while smoking hookah or drinking bubble teas have since become doctors, nurses, teachers, dentists, chefs, cyber security, I.T., and I remember one kid that eventually became @eldereats,” the post reads.
Chef-owner Vinh Hoang, presumably the author of the post, added that he’s done wedding bubble tea catering because the couple’s first date was the the boba and hookah lounge, also pointing to graduations, baby showers and more that San Antonio has “allowed me to be a part of.”
Suck It has had a few different iterations in San Antonio. Its origins are as a boba tea and hookah lounge that opened near UTSA in 2010. In 2016, Suck It: The Restaurant opened in the Medical Center area and kept the cheeky name. Then, Suck It Mixology came to St. Paul Square downtown in 2022, with Suck It Asian Kitchen soon behind. In 2024 came another development — Suck It Asian Fusion & Boba — in collaboration with Sari Sari Filipino Restaurant off Highway 151 near Alamo Ranch.
In the post, Hoang pointed to what he called “a lot of ups and downs over the last 16 years with Suck It, mostly lots of ups.” The original hookah lounge closed in 2019 as he focused on the other food and drink concepts. Google currently lists the St. Paul Square outposts (Suck It Asian Kitchen and Suck It Izakaya & Sushi) as permanently closed, and a strange saga recently unfolded with the Highway 151 location.
A new sign went viral hanging above Suck It Asian Fusion & Boba, which neighbors Michelin-recognized eatery, The Jerk Shack. The sign read, “Mai Phat Buns Now Open,” and MySA reported that Mai Phat Buns had a connection to Hoang through his family, who were running the new Vietnamese concept. Though it hadn’t yet opened when MySA visited in late December 2025, a sign on the glass promoted the Medical Center Suck It location, which seemed to be the only one of the four Suck It restaurants still open at the time. Now, even Mai Phat Buns is listed as temporarily closed on Google.
In the post, Hoang pointed to the economy, rising prices and taking care of his family amid his own two-year-long health struggle as a reason for the final closure. But, he said that doesn’t mean goodbye forever.
“Don’t worry though, I met a lot of talented chefs in San Antonio and Austin that wouldn’t mind me doing a ramen pop up at their restaurant,” he wrote. “This is not good bye San Antonio. I’m taking a step back to concentrate on my family and my health. It’s been a long and wonderful 16 years and when I come back, I’ll tell y’all all about it. Suck It San Antonio!”
Its final day of operation is December 31.
Find it: 7220 Louis Pasteur Drive, Suite 125, San Antonio, TX 78229