TABC Liquor Licensing
Mixed beverage, beer-and-wine, BYOB, late hours, catering, and private-club permits. Public notice, zoning, parallel application with build-out, and protest handling — coordinated against your hard opening date.
Industry · Restaurants & Hospitality
Counsel that sits on the operator's side of the table.
Hospitality is an operating business that happens to have legal exposure on every shift. We protect margins, leases, and brand for Austin restaurants, bars, hotels, and multi-unit groups expanding across Texas and beyond.
Austin · Hospitality
The Operating Reality
The legal work is the operating work.
A restaurant or hotel does not have a separate legal life and operating life. The lease shapes the build-out timeline. The TABC permit shapes the opening date. The employment policies shape the labor budget. The vendor paper shapes the cost of goods. When legal is treated as an afterthought, the operator pays for it on every shift.
Our hospitality clients use us as outside operating counsel — we are in the lease redline, the TABC application, the employment handbook revision, and the franchise structuring conversation, often in the same week. We know which battles to fight with a landlord and which to concede, when a permit timeline is real and when it is theater, and what an inspector is actually going to look for.
We have helped Austin operators open their first concept, structure their second location, build a regional franchise program, and sell to a strategic. The work scales with the operator.
Six Legal Needs Every Operator Has
What hospitality operators actually need from counsel.
These are the documents, permits, and disputes that show up over and over in the lifecycle of a restaurant, bar, or hotel group.
Commercial Leases & Build-Outs
TI allowances negotiated in real dollars, delivery condition, personal-guaranty caps and burn-offs, exclusive use, co-tenancy, percentage rent definitions, and assignment language that does not trap you when you decide to sell the business.
Vendor & Supply Contracts
Broadliner agreements, proprietary product supply, equipment leases, POS and reservation platform contracts, third-party delivery agreements, and the indemnity and pricing-adjustment terms that move actual gross margin.
Employment & Tipped Wages
Tip-credit notices and 80/20/30 compliance, lawful tip pools, overtime calculation on the full minimum wage, manager classification, employee handbook, sexual harassment policy, and the documentation that actually survives a DOL audit.
Franchise & Multi-Unit Structure
Holding company structures, unit operating agreements, FDD preparation and state registrations, franchise vs license analysis, area development agreements, and management company arrangements that keep the brand protected as it scales.
Food Safety & Local Regulatory
Austin Public Health and TDLR matters, inspection response, recall and incident protocols, allergen and labeling counsel, alcohol service incident response, and the operator-side playbook for when an inspector or plaintiff lawyer shows up.
Where We Plug In
Services across the hospitality lifecycle.
Most hospitality clients engage us as outside operating counsel — we run the legal back-office while the operator runs the floor.
Common Scenarios
Real situations we walk operators through.
The lease that almost killed the build.
An Austin chef-owner had signed an LOI for a downtown space with a 14-week build-out window. We pushed back on the delivery condition, secured a longer TI funding tail, and re-papered the rent commencement to tie to TABC issuance — buying the operator nearly two months of free rent and a hard backstop against permit delays.
Three locations, three sets of risk.
A growing Austin coffee group was operating all locations through a single LLC. We restructured into a holding company with single-purpose operating subs, properly cross-collateralized the brand IP, and isolated each location's liquor permit and lease — protecting two locations when the third later faced a guest dispute.
The franchise that was actually a license.
An Austin concept had signed two "license agreements" with out-of-state operators using its brand. The arrangement was a franchise under the FTC rule. We unwound the legacy deals, prepared an FDD, registered in the required states, and re-papered the operators under a compliant franchise structure — closing the regulatory exposure without losing the relationships.
Related Case Study
Seven-location restaurant franchise structure across three states.
How we built the holding company, FDD, and unit operating agreements for an Austin restaurant group expanding regionally — with a structure that produced material tax savings and clean unit-level isolation.
Case Study · Hospitality
Operator FAQ
Questions we answer most weeks.
How long does a TABC permit take?
Timing depends on the permit type, the local jurisdiction, and the cleanliness of the application package. An on-premise Mixed Beverage Permit for an Austin restaurant typically runs eight to twelve weeks from filing to issuance, assuming the location is properly zoned, the public notice is posted on time, and no protest is filed. We build a parallel critical path so the lease, build-out, and TABC application do not collide at opening.
What should I push hardest on in my lease?
After base rent, the items that most affect operator economics are the TI allowance and delivery condition, the personal-guaranty cap and burn-off, exclusive use clauses to prevent a competing concept in the same center, co-tenancy, percentage rent definitions, assignment and change-of-control language for a future sale, and the surrender obligations at lease end. The headline rent is rarely where the real money is.
Is what I am doing a franchise or a license?
If you give a third party the right to operate under your brand, exert any meaningful control over how they operate, and receive a fee in connection with that grant, the FTC Franchise Rule will likely treat the arrangement as a franchise — regardless of what you call it. Mislabeling a franchise as a license is one of the most expensive structural mistakes an Austin restaurant brand can make. We help operators choose the right structure intentionally and paper it correctly.
How do I stay compliant on tipped wages?
Texas follows the federal Fair Labor Standards Act tip credit rules, which include the 80/20/30 framework for non-tipped duties, tip-pool participation limits, written tip-credit notice requirements, and overtime calculation on the full minimum wage. The single biggest exposure we see is informal tip pooling that includes back-of-house staff, paired with no contemporaneous documentation. We help operators design a compliant tip program and audit-ready records.
Opening, expanding, or selling? Bring us in early.
Hospitality timelines move fast, and the legal decisions made in week one shape the next ten years of the business. Talk to us before the lease is signed.