On The Bend Oyster Bar and Cigar Lounge — Restaurant in San Antonio

There's a special brand of masochism in seeking out what can only be described as San Antonio's most ambitious identity crisis: On The Bend Oyster Bar and Cigar Lounge. Nestled beneath the corporate embrace of the Hyatt Regency, it's where the concept of "fusion" has been stretched beyond all reasonable limits.

The joint bills itself as the River Walk's only legal smoking area, a distinction that carries all the prestige of being the cleanest gas station bathroom in Death Valley. The two-tier setup is an architectural metaphor for the entire experience: a lower deck with live jazz that hints at legitimacy, topped by a cigar lounge accessible only via stairs that might as well be labeled "ADA Compliance? We Hardly Knew Her."

At $36 per dozen for Gulf oysters (with East Coast varieties commanding even more of your drinking budget), you'd expect pristine bivalves worthy of reverence. What arrives instead are hit-or-miss offerings that occasionally contain bonus shell fragments, nature's way of keeping you alert after three Vieux Carres. The oysters come on metal trays bedded with ice, accompanied by the requisite sauces and lemon wedges, arranged with all the artistic flair of a hospital cafeteria.

The chicken arrives looking like it took a wrong turn on its route and ended up beneath a pile of institutional rice. It's flanked by green onions scattered with the enthusiasm of someone fulfilling community service hours.

Drinks are the establishment's saving grace, if only because alcohol has a way of making everything more tolerable. Their "innovative" cocktail list features the Creole Bacon Bloody Mary, which is exactly what it sounds like: a perfectly good drink ruined by someone's desperate need to stand out at brunch.

The space itself is awash in electric blues and purples, the universal signal of a place trying very hard to convince you it's cooler than it is. Concrete floors and metal railings complete the "minimalist" aesthetic, which is code for "we didn't want to spend money on actual design."

What's genuinely perplexing is that despite everything, there's something oddly compelling about the place. Perhaps it's the sheer audacity of its existence, or maybe it's the rare opportunity to indulge in nicotine and shellfish simultaneously without someone calling the taste police.

The outdoor deck offers no concession to weather: no heat lamps for chilly evenings, no fans for sweltering days. It's as if the establishment has made a pact with the elements: you take your chances, just like you do with the menu.

In the end, On The Bend is like that friend who keeps making questionable life choices but remains endearing anyway. It's not good, but it's certainly memorable. And in the world of tourist-trap dining, sometimes that's the best you can hope for. Just bring...

Friends, we just left Paesanos Riverwalk and had an amazing experience with the service and the food (see previous review)! We walked over to On the Bend to have a cigar to finish the evening and we were met with such an aggressive and rude behavior from one of the waitress!!! We walked up to the cigar case (that was unlocked) like Sunday evening when we were there and opened it to see what we wanted to try. On this particular night (Tuesday, March 18, 2025) the waitress in the attached photo walked up to me and snatched the cigar I wished to purchase out of my hand and slammed the cigar cased closed in my face! She screamed at me that we should not be picking our own cigar and had a horrible attitude. Again, we were here on Sunday night as well and we were ALLOWED to open the unlocked cigar case and choose the cigar of our preference. I stated to her that her tone and aggressive demeanor was unnecessary and we were only doing what we thought was acceptable because of our previous experience. Well she did not care and told us we could leave if we didn’t like it. Initially we did leave, but I couldn’t accept that behavior because we were having such an amazing evening and I didn’t feel we deserved such a hateful attitude. We returned a few minutes later and I spoke with the manager named Jessica and I expressed my concerns about the disheartening experience with her waitress. Jessica was very nice and she did everything she could to make it right and try to help us have a better experience. We declined the invitation because we were so disappointed that we were treated so poorly. I really hate that we had truly enjoyed our experience with this restaurant up until the encounter! I won’t go back and I visit San Antonio often. It just felt too personal and somewhat prejudice. Never...

First , if we could give negative stars It would be the most appropriate for this God awful place. I arrived with my family hoping to relax and listen to some jazz but we were greeted with a very anxious and not so attentive waiter. When we were finally able to order, my wife ordered the clams... big mistake! These clams, were paractical joke small. My wife, trying not to be fussy, ate a couple until she got to one that was just too ridiculous. When she finally decided to complain, she had to go hunt down the waiter. Upon finding this extremely rude and disrespectful waiter, she explained to him that the clams were just too small. When she showed him the clam, he yanked it from her hand and threw it in the trash. He kept saying to her “if you don’t like them, I can take them off of our bill”, but she explained that this wasn’t the point nor our intention. We only wanted what we were paying for. He tried coming back with, “well some I actually had them put two in each shell”, to make it seem as if he was doing us favors. We really could have done without all of his aggressively defensive excuses. Someone like this should definitely Not have a service job of any sort. When the management decided to come out, she was extremely unprofessional. She was yelling at the waiter in front of everyone making the whole thing so much more uncomfortable. At the end they did bring out some better looking clams, but boy, the process and verbal abuse we had to endure just to get our moneys worth was so exhausting. Please people, avoid this place at all cost. Unless you want to be treated poorly and pay for over priced...