Ohana Poke & Sushi Burrito is closing its New Braunfels location for good on Saturday, ending an eight-year run in a shopping center that has been steadily losing tenants. The Hawaiian-Japanese fusion restaurant, known for build-your-own poke bowls and seaweed burrito wraps, posted a closure sign outside its doors citing affordability concerns and rising real estate costs.
According to MySA, Ohana opened in July 2018 at 651 N. Business IH-35, Suite 1320, inside the New Braunfels MarketPlace shopping center, and its final day of operation is Saturday, August 22. The restaurant let customers pick their own proteins and toppings — including avocado, pineapple, mango, edamame, cucumber and seaweed — finished with a signature sauce, and it stood as the city's only dedicated poke-sushi fusion concept, according to Ohana's own business materials. The outlet reported that Ohana decided the location's prices could no longer offset increasing real estate costs, and MySA said it reached out to the restaurant for additional comment but did not receive one before publication.
Ohana thanked its customers in the closure announcement and said it remains open to franchising opportunities, inviting interested parties to make an offer, the outlet's report noted. The restaurant's menu had stretched beyond raw fish to include non-seafood options such as bulgogi, cooked chicken and boba beverages, a range detailed on Ohana's own site, which had helped it carve out a niche in the local dining scene.
A Shopping Center in Flux
Ohana's exit is not an isolated event at the 260,829-square-foot New Braunfels MarketPlace, which is owned and managed by Wiggins Commercial. Fatburger and Round Table Pizza, side-by-side neighbors in the same center, both closed less than two years after opening, a departure Hoodline covered in its report on the burger and pizza bust along I-35 in March. Gold's Gym also closed its longtime space at the center in early 2026, clearing the way for Crunch Fitness to move in with a $1.5 million, 42,763-square-foot renovation, as Hoodline reported when Crunch was announced as the replacement.
The shopping center has still added tenants amid the churn, including a tabletop gaming bar that opened this summer at Suite 810 in the same complex. But the overall pattern points to a broader reshuffling of the plaza's tenant roster, with independent food and fitness operators giving way to new arrivals as leases turn over.
Rising Rents Squeeze Independent Operators
The pressure on Ohana reflects conditions playing out across New Braunfels and Texas more broadly. Commercial retail vacancy in Comal County stood at just 2.3% in the second quarter of 2026, according to BRAG Advisory, giving landlords along major retail corridors significant pricing power over tenants competing for scarce space.
That scarcity has coincided with rapid growth: New Braunfels' estimated population climbed to 122,492 residents as of July 2025, up more than 35% from 90,403 in 2020, per U.S. Census Bureau estimates. At the same time, net developable land within city limits fell by roughly 10% between 2020 and 2023, according to the City of New Braunfels, pushing new development into surrounding areas and inflating the value of established retail sites still inside city limits.
Industry advocates cited by Community Impact have noted that Texas restaurant operators renewing five-year leases signed in 2020 or 2021 are now facing rents that have effectively doubled, driven by rising real estate values and property taxes. Roughly half of Texas restaurants were unprofitable in recent quarters, the outlet reported, a backdrop that helps explain why an eight-year-old, locally established restaurant like Ohana could no longer make its numbers work.
Texas led the nation in restaurant closures during the first half of 2026, with 1,039 shuttered dining spots statewide, driven by a 35% surge in food costs and a 30% rise in labor costs since before the pandemic. Other New Braunfels businesses have felt the same squeeze recently — Hoodline reported that mini-golf venue Sip-N-Putt relocated across Interstate 35 this month after citing a local rent squeeze, and independent restaurant Roost also closed in nearby Freiheit Village earlier this year.
For now, Ohana's storefront will go dark after Saturday, joining a growing list of businesses that have cycled through the New Braunfels MarketPlace in recent months. Whether a new tenant fills the space — or whether Ohana finds a franchise partner to keep the concept alive elsewhere — remains to be seen.
