Taquería De Diez, the street-taco shop known to regulars as a tucked-away downtown stop, is planning a far more public next chapter: a remodel and reopening at 500 E. Sixth St., on the block between Trinity and Neches. The lease makes the restaurant the first confirmed tenant in Stream Realty Partners’ sprawling “Old 6th” effort—a redevelopment push aimed at reshaping a corridor that’s long been defined by late-night bar traffic. On the ground, the new address is easy to picture: the future taquería will sit across from Coyote Ugly Saloon and next to Lone Star Souvenir & Food Mart, on a stretch that starts to thin out compared to the denser bar rows closer to Congress, but still catches pedestrians spilling over from Red River Street’s music venues.
Stream Realty Partners is the developer behind Old 6th, and the scale of its bet is unusually large for a single downtown corridor: the firm has assembled more than 30 properties between I-35 and Congress Avenue since 2020 and has described its plan as a mix of historic rehabilitation, streetscape changes, and a curated tenant roster that leans harder into food and daytime uses. Taquería De Diez’s lease is for a small but symbolically important piece of that strategy—one restaurant countering a perception problem by putting a line-forming local brand right on the sidewalk. In public-facing framing of the corridor’s goals, “It’s time for Sixth to really be focused on Austinites.”, said unnamed speaker.
The relocation also comes with an explicit tradeoff for customers: Taquería De Diez will close its current downtown location—tucked into an alley off Trinity Street—and reopen on East Sixth with a projected debut in the first half of 2027. That timeline puts the restaurant’s move on a redevelopment clock rather than the usual restaurant expansion cadence, with buildout work and coordinated block improvements shaping when the doors can open. For a business that built early buzz on a low-profile entrance and word-of-mouth lines, the new frontage could change who finds it and when: more casual walk-ins, more tourists, and more people grabbing tacos before shows on Red River rather than seeking out a “hidden gem.”
That “hidden gem” reputation has been central to the taquería’s identity in online customer chatter—part of the appeal of walking past an unassuming sign into a bright, noisy kitchen where meat spins on trompos. One review captures the mood bluntly: “Hidden in a little alley in Downtown Austin, Taqueria de Diez is a true gem. Hands down the BEST tacos I’ve had—especially the pastor.”, said unnamed reviewer. Moving to 500 E. Sixth St. doesn’t erase that food identity—northwestern Mexico influences from Tijuana and Sonora, plus Baja California, are still the core—but it does reposition the brand from destination-in-an-alley to a highly legible street-level tenant meant to pull people along a block.
For the neighborhood, the bigger story is what a first lease signals about the tenant mix Stream is trying to assemble—and how those choices interact with street life, traffic, and public safety. Stream’s published strategy has included expanded sidewalks, pedestrian-safety planning, and even reopening the street to vehicle traffic during weekend evenings, a notable pivot in how the corridor might handle crowd management and access. The company’s broader goal is an “18-hour district,” meaning activity that extends beyond bar close—workers at lunch, residents in the afternoon, and visitors who treat the area as more than a nighttime strip. That push dovetails with Austin’s broader restaurant churn and redevelopment pressure, where new openings and closures often track real estate decisions as much as culinary ones; as previously reported in Austin’s restaurant churn, operators across the city are adjusting formats and locations as costs rise and neighborhoods reprice.
City policy is also shaping what can be built around the taquería. In August 2023, Austin City Council adopted design standards for a portion of Sixth Street between Sabine and Neches that lifted the height limit to 140 feet from the former 45-foot cap, unlocking taller mixed-use projects and a new set of streetscape expectations. That includes concepts like a 150- to 160-room hotel envisioned for the 500 block and a roughly 122-foot residential tower on the 600 block—projects that would add density, new trip generation, and potentially new daytime customers, while also raising familiar concerns about construction disruption, loading, and parking spillover into adjacent streets. In the redevelopment narrative, the motivation is preservation-plus-change; “Sixth Street is central to Austin and essential to preserving the city's vitality, and we want to bring this beloved street back to what it once was.”, said unnamed speaker.
Community response to the Old 6th effort—and to Taquería De Diez joining it—has split along predictable lines: supporters see a beloved local food operator as a stabilizing anchor that can diversify the corridor and make it more usable during the day, while critics worry that “revitalization” will accelerate rent escalation, push out smaller legacy tenants, and further tilt Sixth Street toward curated, higher-cost concepts. The demographic and market case for a daytime food tenant is strong: East Austin is now described as roughly 119,775 residents with a median household income around $101,034 and a median age near 33, a mix that tends to support quick-casual formats and repeat lunch traffic as much as nightlife spending. Still, for regulars of the current alley spot—already dealing with softer foot traffic tied to the disrupted convention center area—the closure means losing a specific routine and a specific kind of discovery. The Esquer brothers and their co-founder, Roy Servan, have positioned the move as a way to keep the food intact while stepping into a different kind of visibility; “We’ve been incredibly grateful for the support Austin has shown us since day one,” said Raul Esquer. For Stream, the restaurant is also a statement about what comes next; “Taqueria De Diez is exactly the kind of award‑winning, community‑rooted concept we’re proud to welcome to Old 6th,” said Paul Bodenman, Stream senior vice president. The first lease doesn’t settle the debate over what Sixth Street should become—but it does set a baseline: food, not just bars, is being used as the opening move.
