San Marcos Playing Cards highlight favorite restaurants, places, experiences in town

Have you ever wanted to hold San Marcos in your hands?

Luke Merchant and Creighton Coyne had a vision to accomplish just that. The duo — two friends who met while working as tour guides at Wonder World Cave & Adventure Park — teamed up to create San Marcos Playing Cards. The 54-card deck features notable San Marcos spots, restaurants, and people.

“It’s a perfect memento to look back on and never forget the places you got to know,” Merchant said. “And then for the people who are new in town, it’s a fast-growing city, so I feel like this can sort of enlighten people. As a local myself, I was born and raised here, we definitely tried to make a good emphasis on representing local places. So like, Cuevas Produce, that means a lot to people in the community. Or like Centro [Cultural Hispano de San Marcos].”

Merchant, a San Marcos native who graduated from San Marcos High School in 2019 and is currently a history major entering his senior year at Texas State University, said the idea to create the cards began last year. Merchant and Coyne began taking pictures for the cards in the summer and finished editing the photos and found a card company to print them by May 2022.

Merchant said it was an uphill journey as they had to raise $15,000 to print all 4,000 decks of cards.

“Slowly, we chipped away at that,” Merchant said. “It became very stressful because for a while we only had a couple thousand dollars in sponsorship money and we still needed $10,000 more and we needed to put some money down and get the cards being made. So, I tell the story, once I had to move my entire life savings over to the left just to make it happen. Just to get them started being made and we would still need the other half later on. But it was honestly one of the biggest risks we’ve ever taken. We were just like, ‘We believe in it. It’s gonna be good.’ Sure enough, while the cards were being made, we just kept on having meetings and caught a couple breaks from generous people who saw our vision and believed in us.”

San Marcos Playing Cards (pictured above) feature some of San Marcos’ best restaurants, places, experiences and people. The deck of cards was created by Luke Merchant and Crieghton Coyne. Daily Record photo by Nick Castillo

A painting of a Bobcat and Rattlesnake in the San Marcos River with a mermaid on the banks and Ralph the Swimming Pig flying in front of the river’s headwaters by San Marcos artist Rene Perez adorns the back of the cards.

Locations on the cards include Texas State, San Marcos Springs, Rio Vista Park, Sewell Park, Kissing Alley, The Square, Wonder World Cave, Purgatory Creek Natural Area and Stokes Park.

Notable people like President Lyndon Baines Johnson, George Strait, the Sun God are included on the cards. Classic San Marcos restaurants like Herbert’s Taco Hut, Garcia’s Mexican Restaurant, Cafe on the Square, Palmer’s Restaurant, Bar & Courtyard, Alvin Ord’s Sandwich Shop, Grin’s, Root Cellar Cafe, Valentino’s and Jo’s Cafe found a spot in the deck.

Notable events like Sights & Sounds of Christmas, Summer in the Park and the weekly Farmer’s Market are also featured. The ace of spades highlights a notable San Marcos experience — a train on the tracks. “Trains, the teacher of patience,” the ace of spades reads.

Merchant said picking which San Marcos locations to feature caused him stress.

“I stayed up all night sometimes, man, just thinking about not having certain places and feeling obligated to represent certain parts of San Marcos. And do I exclude other parts? That was really hard to do because there’s no comprehensive list of what to appreciate about San Marcos.”

Coyne, a Conroe native who recently graduated from Texas State with his bachelor’s degree in business administration, said he believes the card can bridge the divide between college students and lifelong San Marcos residents.

“It’s cool because you get both perspectives,” Creighton said. “I moved here to go to college when I was 18 and now I’ve absolutely fallen in love with the city. I’ve had such a great time with such beautiful and great spots.”

To get your own San Marcos Playing Cards deck visit smtxplayingcards.com.