What's New Within Ten Minutes Of Hill Country Village This Summer

For years, the honest answer to "where should we eat tonight?" on the north side was a shrug and a drive south. The Pearl, Southtown, maybe Olmos Park if traffic on 281 cooperated. That answer is starting to change, and the shift is compressed into a small radius around the 281 and 1604 interchange. This summer, the interesting stuff is close.

The thesis of this post in one line: you can build a full summer weekend inside a ten-minute drive of Hill Country Village, and for the first time in a while, that includes a dinner reservation worth calling ahead for.

Here's what's actually worth knowing right now, sorted by how you'd use it.

A dinner reservation the north side hasn't had in years

The corner space at 18740 Stone Oak Parkway has been a graveyard. Frida Mexican Kitchen closed after four years. Before that, CoCo Bongo lasted twelve months. Before that, Buckles & Buns, Drew's American Grill, and Watermark Grill each folded in short order, and