Deep in a sea of blue and orange, there’s a silver-and-black dot repping the Spurs nearly 2,000 miles away.
Yellow Rose, a Tex-Mex restaurant in Manhattan’s East Village, has decked out its dining room with a Wemby head and a Spurs flag in an act of Alamo City defiance that one social media commenter called “ballsy.” But Krystiana Rizo, one of the owners, told MySA there was never any question about whether they’d decorate for the Spurs — plus, they’ll be showing the games on a big projector and two vintage TV sets.
“It’s like … they’re in the Finals, and so we’re obviously going to represent them,” Rizo said. “For us, it’s all in good fun. I know that there’s a lot of die-hard Knicks fans here, and that’s totally fine. So far, so good. But as the Finals progress, we’ll see how that goes.”
Rizo, a longtime bartender, and her husband, Dave, a chef, were both born and raised in San Antonio. She said that growing up there, “you are always a Spurs fan.”
“A good memory that I have is whenever they would win a game or a championship or anything, just going around with everybody honking. I feel like I like to tell everybody here about the honking, and they’re like, ‘Why do you do that?’ I’m like, ‘You wouldn’t understand.'”
The couple moved to New York City 10 years ago to expand their horizons in the food scene. After noticing that there was almost no Tex-Mex in New York (or good Tex-Mex, for that matter), the couple opened Yellow Rose in November 2020, starting as a pop-up and later evolving into its current space — with a Brooklyn location on the way. They’ve been serving bean-and-cheese tacos, enchiladas with mole, Shiner beer and other staples to many expatriated Texans in the Big Apple ever since, and Rizo says a Texan or former Texan stops by just about every day.
And they’re not the only ones. Yellow Rose and fellow Texan-owned bar Doris, located in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, collaborated on a fundraiser for Kerr County flood relief last year — and Doris is also serving as a safe space for Spurs fans in NYC. “FOR THE RECORD – Doris loves the Knicks, too! We just LOVE the SPURS more,” an Instagram post announcing Doris’ transformation into a Spurs sports bar reads. “If you’ve been paying any attention, we’ve had Ginobli’s jersey hanging behind the bar since 2013, so it shouldn’t be any surprise who we’re rooting for – (anyone but OKC).”
For anyone wondering, a decade in NYC hasn’t exactly turned the Rizos into Knicks fans, though Krystiana Rizo did say they’re a “sports family” who respect the Knicks and have watched them. However, she said they need to root for the hometown team. She believes the Spurs “are going to take it for sure,” though she can’t say how many games it’ll take.
It seems Yellow Rose will have something to celebrate either way — an electrified NYC or a hometown ready to go honking.