Slim Chickens moved into an old Zaxby's on the I-35 frontage road this month. It adds another restaurant option to Round Rock's dining mix.
A few miles away, two more restaurants opened in Round Rock. A chef with a Michelin Guide mention from Atlanta took over a shuttered Denny's on the same highway. A restaurant group known for a Michelin-starred sushi concept in Los Angeles opened in a former neighborhood bistro space in Round Rock. Both openings bring chef-led concepts to former restaurant spaces in Round Rock. Together, they are one part of the town's dining story this August.
What actually opened, and what it replaced
Four names matter here: three took over existing restaurant spaces, while one opened in a new build.
| Restaurant | Backing | Took over | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grey Orchard | Owner James Sun, Chef Cole Fitzgerald | Former Denny's, 2700 N Interstate 35 | Soft opened July 9 |
| Frank & Margie's | Scratch Restaurants Group | Former Odd's Bar + Bistro, 1401 S I-35 Frontage Rd | Opened May 16 |
| Conejo's Tex-Mex Cantina | Bobby Joe Hernandez, chef Eduardo Miguel, Matt and Sandra Morcher | New build | Opened Aug. 5 |
| Slim Chickens | National franchise | Former Zaxby's | Opened early August |
Grey Orchard is a notable addition to Round Rock's dining mix. Chef Cole Fitzgerald earned a Michelin Guide mention at 24 for his work at Atlanta's the White Bull before James Sun brought him to Austin, where the two already run Fig Italian Kitchen & Bar on South Lamar and Cedro Scratch Italian & Wine Bar in Cedar Park. The pair opened Grey Orchard in the former Denny's on I-35, and the menu leans into Asian-influenced American cooking, including fried chicken with an Asian dipping sauce and a Vietnamese bánh mì with duck confit.
Frank & Margie's tells the same story from a different city. It comes from Scratch Restaurants Group, the company behind Michelin-starred Sushi by Scratch Restaurants and Pasta|Bar, run by chefs Phillip Frankland Lee and Margarita Kallas-Lee. They opened in the space Odd's Bar + Bistro vacated in March, seating about 100 for thin-crust pizzas built on Kallas-Lee's own sourdough starter, along with handmade pastas and a full bar. The same ownership group also opened NADC Burger, a food truck, at The Rock Sports Bar in May. Two formats, one operator, both landing in Round Rock within weeks of each other. That's not a test run. That's a bet.
Conejo's Tex-Mex Cantina adds another locally operated restaurant to the mix. It's owned outright by Bobby Joe Hernandez, chef Eduardo Miguel, and Matt and Sandra Morcher, who already run a location in Leander. The Round Rock menu blends Mexican and Tex-Mex staples with Southern touches, crispy short rib quesa-birrias and al pastor street tacos among them. Its opening is another example of local operators expanding into Round Rock.
A recent closure
The restaurant scene also includes a recent closure. 3rd Level Brewing closed in April amid a bankruptcy filing. It opened in June 2023 with a gaming and nerd-culture theme running through its interior. The closure is part of Round Rock's restaurant story alongside the new openings.
Downtown hosts its first multi-day arts festival
The restaurant wave had company this month. Downtown Round Rock hosted its first Round Rock Summer Arts Fest, Aug. 6 through 9, organized by the city's Arts and Culture department. It drew roughly 100 artist vendors and about 30 live performances across the weekend, anchored by the Sheppard Street Stage and Prete Plaza, with a Thursday-night street dance kicking things off before the festival proper opened Friday at noon. Admission was free.
An inaugural downtown festival is a different kind of signal than a restaurant opening. Restaurants bet on foot traffic that already exists. A first-year arts festival is the city itself betting that downtown can carry a multi-day event, that people will come back Friday, Saturday, and Sunday rather than pass through once. Alongside Music on Main, the city's recurring free concert series at Prete Main Street Plaza, the festival adds another occasion to visit downtown.
The ballpark still does what it always did
Not everything new this month is actually new, and that's worth saying plainly rather than stretching a familiar routine into a headline. Dell Diamond keeps running its home schedule for the Round Rock Express, with an August slate that includes a series against the Sugar Land Space Cowboys and another against the Albuquerque Isotopes closing out the month. Friday night games still end in fireworks, the same tradition the ballpark has run for years. It's not a new development, but it's the backdrop against which the new restaurants and the new festival are landing. A resident's August now stacks a first-year arts festival, a Michelin-adjacent dinner option, and a Friday game at the Diamond in the same few weeks. That combination didn't exist here two summers ago.
What this means if you already live here
The practical shift is smaller week to week and larger across a season. Grey Orchard and Frank & Margie's both sit on I-35 now, inside city limits, no thirty or forty minute detour required. Conejo's adds another locally operated dining option. None of this requires anyone to think about buying or selling anything. It just means the answer to "where should we eat tonight" has more good options in it than it did in January, and downtown added a festival to its calendar this August.
Whether you're the kind of person who tracks these openings for fun or you just noticed the old Denny's finally has cars in the parking lot again, this summer's changes are visible in both the dining mix and downtown calendar.
If you're curious what a shift like this means for home values or timing down the road, that's a longer conversation, and Bolanos Realty knows Round Rock well enough to have it. Reach out anytime to schedule your free consultation.
