The Birdhouse: fried chicken and cocktails in New Braunfels

The Birdhouse sits on one of the back streets of historic Gruene in New Braunfels, right off the beaten path. Pulling up, you see a white cottage with a red bird on its sign, cactus planted along the front and red posts on the porch. It is a fried chicken and cocktail restaurant, and it has been The Birdhouse since 2023.

How it started

Ross Wilkinson is the owner of The Birdhouse, Fancy Chicken & Fine Cocktails. He is from Houston, where he got his first restaurant job at 15, as a busboy at Redwood Grill.

"If you look at my business card, it says owner slash busboy," he said, and he means it.

After college came about 10 years in radio and TV. When things changed there, he found the River House Tea Room in Gruene listed for sale on a website called BizBuySell. It was a tea room through and through: flower tablecloths, open 11 to 4, chicken salad sandwiches and a following that was mostly women.

The food was not the problem, and he calls the former owner, Chef Carol, a champ. What he saw was a marketing problem: nobody knew the tea room sold burgers too, and he wanted to bring in the husbands and the kids.

In August 2015, Ross, his wife and their baby daughter moved to New Braunfels, and they took over the tea room on August 4. Opening day came on February 5, 2016, when the tea room opened its doors as the River House, with no tea. The first dinner they ever served was a fried chicken dinner.

The hard days

Ross underestimated the challenges. The restaurant grew into the River House Southern Scratch Kitchen, and that meant sleepless nights for years. It built a following with a menu on the higher end for the area: filet mignon, lobster nachos and blackened redfish.

Then COVID hit. When the world opened back up, that menu needed really skilled labor, at a time when any labor was hard to find. After about a year and a half of trying to rebuild, with burned steaks and overcooked redfish, they were losing money and his staff was not happy.

"But there is this one bright light," he said. "There was one beacon of good, positive stuff every week. And it was our Sunday night fried chicken dinner."

On those nights they cleared the deck and served only family-style fried chicken. He thinks it was what the world needed: enough with the fancy stuff.

The Birdhouse was born out of those Sunday dinners. Over lunch with his wife at Lupe Tortilla, he told her he wished they could all be fried chicken dinners. She told him he needed to do a little more than fried chicken, and a cocktail program came up in the same conversation.

They scrapped everything else, and Ross even dug a hole and buried a handful of menus and other things with their logo on them, as a symbolic thing. They closed for repairs, redid the place without knocking down walls and put in a full liquor bar.

A great day

The Birdhouse was named Best Fried Chicken in the Herald-Zeitung's Best of New Braunfels for 2026. The Herald-Zeitung is the town's newspaper, and Ross said they have won it two years in a row, after missing their first year.

Asked what he is most proud of, though, he talked about people. A five-star review that uses the word hospitality may make him happier than Best Fried Chicken does.

The food

One look at their reviews online and it's easy to see why this place is so popular, boasting over 1,300 reviews at 4.5 stars on Google. In a Google review, Joseph G. wrote, "Fried chicken was crispy and seasoned so well."

Inside the restaurant

The first thing I noticed walking in was quite the eclectic collection of art from famous musicians, and George Strait is on one of them. Keith Whitley's name runs in red across a poster over the bar, and a Hank Williams poster hangs by the counter. A small sign by the bar reads Life Is Too Short To Live In Houston.

I'm a fan of Starry Night, and they have a print of one with a chicken painted into the picture. It's very on brand for The Birdhouse.

They also have a print that reads The River House, Gruene, Texas, Southern Fried Chicken Dinner, Friday, February 5, 2016. It shows a gentleman and a lady having a picnic with fried chicken. It was an early hint of what was to come, before they even knew it.

Who helped

His dad got him the interview at Redwood Grill. His wife made the move with him to a town where they did not know anybody.

The people they have hired over the years helped move the place to where it is, and he is grateful even for the ones who left on not so good terms. "Whether they know it or not, they made a better owner out of me," he said.

Ross is Catholic, and he credits God for the move to New Braunfels and all the good that came with it. One time, sitting in his car out in front of the gym with the weight of the world on him, he went back to prayer.

What's behind the business

Ross was more down to earth than I anticipated. This interview felt more raw than anything. It goes to show that there is a human being behind every business, and with how difficult the restaurant industry can be, you can tell people like Ross have given it their all. I'm looking forward to coming back.

I asked Ross what he wishes the people who pass by every day knew about what is behind it. He and his family uprooted their lives, stuck their necks out and took huge risks.

"We came here to have a great life in Texas, to raise our daughter, to meet new people, to be a part of this community," he said. "And this was our engine that was allowing us to do that. Now, over the years, I've fallen in love with it more than I ever, ever expected. And I truly feel like this is who I am."

Visit The Birdhouse

• Address: 1617 New Braunfels St, New Braunfels, TX 78130
• Hours: Monday to Friday, 11 AM to 9 PM. Saturday, 10 AM to 9 PM. Sunday, 10 AM to 8 PM.
• Phone: (830) 532-7800
• Website: thebirdhousetx.com