Pflugerville Council Votes 5-0 to Deny the Wine Bar Next to the Church Development
The Three Legged Goat wanted the Hill Country Bible Church development's alcohol ban lifted for its new home. After hours of testimony, the council kept the original deal.
PFLUGERVILLE — The Pflugerville City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to deny a request to lift the alcohol ban in the Hill Country Bible Church planned unit development, ending the Three Legged Goat's bid to reopen as a wine bar at East Pflugerville Parkway and Wilke Ridge Lane. The vote on ORD-0905 was 5-0, after hours of emotional testimony, according to the city's meeting record.
The amendment would have removed the development's bar on alcohol-serving businesses across about 48.126 acres at the southeast corner of the intersection, land governed by a 2023 ordinance. More than a dozen residents — mostly church members, recovery counselors and neighbors from the Amberlin senior community — urged the council to honor the original agreement, which bars alcohol-focused businesses near the church's counseling and addiction-recovery ministries. Council members said upholding the plan was about keeping the city's word to property owners, the record says.
The other side had a sympathetic case. The Three Legged Goat, owned by former council member Jim McDonald, served only Texas beers and wines from its downtown Pflugerville home from 2018 until its lease ended and it closed in late October. At the Nov. 2 Planning and Zoning hearing, McDonald pitched a community-focused wine bar — a $14 average pour, quiet music, kid-friendly afternoons, no complaints in eight years — and the commission recommended a limited version of the amendment, for one lot only. The council chose the original deal over the limited exception.
The wine bar was the night's headline, not its only business: the council locked in an electricity contract for city facilities at up to $0.0615 per kilowatt-hour for 48 months starting June 2027, approved a $2.44 million engineering contract to replace a failing wastewater line over Gilleland Creek by 3-2, created a SAFE Technology Commission to oversee surveillance technology, and renewed the police department's TrapWire software with a 90-day review attached.
