Suck It opening bar and restaurant in St. Paul Square

Suck It, a tongue-in-cheek name that’s been part of San Antonio since 2010, is now moving into St. Paul Square. Owner Vinh Hoang recently opened Suck It Mixology and soon will open an Asian restaurant next door in the growing food and drink neighborhood.

The bar opened March 17, and Hoang plans to host his first restaurant guests in early April.

Hoang says nearly two years of preparation have gone on behind the scenes. He says the restaurant was planned before the pandemic, but plumbing issues arose. While the city worked to fix the issue, he acquired the next door bar space, which used to be Ringside Sports Bar.

Hoang started the Suck It brand as a hookah and bubble tea shop in 2010 near the University of Texas at San Antonio’s main campus. A Medical Center restaurant followed, opening in November 2016. The original Suck It closed December 2019 as Hoang decided to focus on food and drinks.

The Medical Center restaurant will remain open and is different from its new sister restaurant. Hoang says his new downtown businesses are more “elevated” than their predecessors, with the pan-Asian restaurant offering sophisticated takes on classic Vietnamese, Japanese and Korean dishes, such as .a lemon grass pork chop with Asian ratatouille.

The bar serves drinks like the Suck It Old Fashioned which incorporates traditional pho spices like star anise, cinnamon, cardamom, fennel and coriander. Another popular drink is the Crazy Rich Asian, which uses Bombay East Gin and is topped with a Tiffany blue-colored Champagne.

Hoang says the bar and restaurant are currently not connected, but he will eventually add an entry to make the flow more seamless for customers.

Suck It Mixology, 1163 E. Commerce St., Instagram: @suckitbar.

Vinh Hoang Suck It has opened a bar in St. Paul Square. Soon to come is a pan-Asian restaurant with a more “elevated” feel.