Walk Mercer Street this month and you will step around orange barricades twice in three blocks. Custom handrails are going in near the downtown triangle, a raised crosswalk sits freshly poured by the old post office, and somewhere behind the plywood a paseo that will finally connect Vintage Soul to the public restrooms is waiting on its November groundbreaking. Keep walking and you will also pass a new sign for Roxie's, the Southern comfort food restaurant bringing fried chicken and family-recipe pies to Mercer Street sometime this year, and the still-fresh storefront for Rice and Oak Thai Texas Grill Kitchen, which opened downtown after owner Siwaphan Sampaotong spent almost a decade running Aroi Thai as a food truck out of Belterra.
Downtown’s construction and its changing business mix are unfolding alongside growth elsewhere in Dripping Springs.
Two Main Streets, growing at different speeds
Dripping Springs does not really have one commercial spine anymore. There is the historic triangle around Mercer, Wallace, Hays, Bluff, College, San Marcos, and Old Fitzhugh, the streets named in the city's own downtown master plan, and there is the Hwy. 290 corridor running past Ledgestone and out toward Canyonwood Drive. For most of this year, both have been busy. Only one of them is being rebuilt at the same time.
The Mercer Street Paseo is the clearest evidence of that. It was named a Tax Incentive Reinvestment Zone priority project back in 2025, with $180,250 allocated in the fiscal year 2026 budget to build a pedestrian connector between Vintage Soul and the downtown restrooms, complete with native plantings chosen for low maintenance. City officials told the Dripping Springs Chamber of Commerce at the January State of the City presentation that the Paseo is slated to break ground in November, timed to finish alongside renovations to the historic Stephenson Building a few doors down. That building is expected to enter a testing and transition period in December, with a full public opening planned for January 2027. A new public parking lot is also under construction nearby at 101 Old Fitzhugh Road, part of the same push to make downtown easier to park in and walk through.
None of this is small-town busywork. It is the physical follow-through on a plan the city adopted specifically to protect what officials call the vitality and community character of downtown, and it is happening on a real timeline with real dollars attached, not as a vague someday.
New downtown businesses
Rice and Oak is open downtown, and Roxie's is planning to open there while construction continues. They are small, single-location, locally rooted operations on a street that is currently harder to walk than it will be in four months. Rice and Oak's owner had already built a following with Aroi Thai's food truck for years before opening the brick-and-mortar restaurant in downtown Dripping Springs. Roxie's is planning large patios and flexible event space, the kind of layout that works best once people can actually stroll up to it, which is exactly what the Paseo is designed to make easier.
Recent downtown closures
Recent departures are part of that picture. Garbo's Lobster, the Austin-based seafood spot known for its East Coast oysters and lobster rolls, opened its Dripping Springs location in 2024 and closed it in January 2026, less than two years later. The company kept its other Austin locations and its food truck running while pulling out of the Hill Country address. Juniper Tree Market, a downtown fixture selling jewelry, apparel, and decor, closed the same month after five years in business.
Those exits came during a period when the city was also investing in downtown improvements; they do not establish what prompted either business to close.
A new location on the corridor
On September 22, Tacodeli confirmed it has signed a lease for a new Dripping Springs location, and it is not going downtown. The spot is at the intersection of Hwy. 290 and Canyonwood Drive, out on the corridor, with no opening date set yet. Tacodeli is an Austin name with locations across the metro.
Fast-casual and quick-service businesses with multiple locations elsewhere in Central Texas have tended to locate on 290 rather than in the triangle. Downtown, meanwhile, is moving ahead with sidewalks, parking, and restoration of a historic building.
The list below captures the downtown projects and business changes underway this fall.
On Mercer Street right now
For anyone tracking the block by block detail, here is the state of play as of this fall:
- Roxie's: Southern comfort food restaurant opening on Mercer Street, full bar and patio planned, opening date not yet finalized
- Rice and Oak Thai Texas Grill Kitchen: open downtown, the brick-and-mortar successor to the decade-old Aroi Thai food truck
- Garbo's Lobster: closed its Dripping Springs location in January 2026 after less than two years
- Juniper Tree Market: closed downtown after five years in business
- Mercer Street Paseo: pedestrian connector between Vintage Soul and the downtown restrooms, funded through the TIRZ, groundbreaking expected in November
- Stephenson Building: renovation nearing completion, testing period in December, public opening planned for January 2027
- New public parking lot: under construction at 101 Old Fitzhugh Road
- Tacodeli: lease signed for a location at Hwy. 290 and Canyonwood Drive, opening date to be determined
What stays the same while all of that changes
Amid the barricades and the leases, one downtown fixture has not moved at all. The Dripping Springs Farmers Market still runs every Wednesday at the Pound House Farmstead in Founders Memorial Park, the same weekly rhythm it has kept regardless of what is under construction two blocks over. The Dripping Springs Songwriters Festival returns October 16 through 18 at Ranch Park and Event Center, another fixture that does not care whether the Stephenson Building is ready yet.
This fall brings downtown construction, business openings and closures, and a new Tacodeli location planned for the Hwy. 290 corridor. The Wednesday market and October festival remain on their schedules. Mercer Street will look different in January as the work progresses.
If you are watching Dripping Springs for reasons that go beyond dinner plans, whether that is a future purchase, a sale, or simply understanding how a neighborhood's commercial center is repositioning itself, Sharon Murray has been tracking this kind of on-the-ground change across West Austin and the Hill Country for years. You can browse more on the Dripping Springs neighborhood page or reach out directly. Let's Connect.
