What's New Around Preston Hollow in 2026: A Neighbor's Guide to the Openings Reshaping Our Shopping Centers
If you have lived in Preston Hollow for even a couple of years, you already know the rhythm of the three centers that anchor daily life here: Preston Royal at Preston and Royal, Preston Hollow Village on Walnut Hill, and the Plaza at Preston Center at Preston and Northwest Highway. What is different about 2026 is not that they are gaining a restaurant or two. It is that each center is placing a distinctly different bet on what a Preston Hollow evening should feel like, and those bets are landing at the same moment.
Read together, the openings say something the roundups on other sites miss. Preston Royal is chasing a celebrity anchor. Preston Hollow Village is quietly stacking chef-driven independents. The Plaza is importing brands that have never set foot in Texas. And a block away, the Preston Center redevelopment finally broke ground in March. If you have felt the neighborhood shifting under your feet this year, this is why.
The biggest single arrival is at Preston and Royal. Palladino's Steak & Seafood opened June 16 at 5959 Royal Lane, in the former Spec's space at Preston Road and Royal Lane. The opening matters less because Dallas needed another steakhouse and more because of who is behind the counter.
Restaurateur Joseph Palladino is the ex-NYPD officer-turned-operator known for Nick & Sam's Steakhouse and the Coal Vines pizza chain. His new concept had a very short New York honeymoon before heading here. Palladino first announced the Dallas location in 2025, while simultaneously opening the original Palladino's Steak & Seafood inside New York's Grand Central Terminal. That timeline is unusual. Most out-of-town operators wait a few years before duplicating a concept in a second market. This one crossed the country in months.
The kitchen is not a solo act either. Executive chef Sam Hazen's résumé includes stints at Michelin three-star Le Gavroche, Tavern on the Green, and Tao, alongside chef de cuisine Henry Johnson. And the room itself carries a design pedigree many neighbors will recognize from travel: the Dallas location was designed by Rockwell Group, the internationally known design firm that also created the New York restaurant.
A short walk from Preston Royal, another familiar space has turned over. Cantina La Rosa is a new Tex-Mex restaurant in Preston Hollow, just opened in the former Fernando's space, from the owners of Dallas' Smoky Rose. The people behind it will be familiar to anyone who has followed the East Dallas dining scene: David Tripplehorn Cash, who also co-owns Goodwins, is teaming up with first-time restaurateur Cameron Levine, along with Smoky Rose executive chef Rolando Garcia and Smoky Rose co-owner Oscar Aroche.
Preston Royal's play is legibility. Big names, familiar categories, room to celebrate.
Walk south on Central to Walnut Hill and the strategy changes. Preston Hollow Village has spent the last year quietly adding chef-driven independents rather than chasing marquee brands.
The most recent confirmation is Shanghainese. DuWest Commercial Real Estate has confirmed that Fortune House will open on September 26 at Preston Hollow Village, joining the original location on MacArthur Boulevard in Irving and a three-year-old spot on Lower Greenville. If you have not eaten at the Irving original, the specialty is worth showing up for. Since launching in 2015, Fortune House has earned accolades, including a "Best Dumplings" nod from DMagazine, thanks to its signature soup dumplings, xiao long bao, available in traditional pork, blue crab, and black truffle, with handmade dough and pork broth simmered for hours. The menu also includes steamed whole sea bass, tea-smoked duck, and a creative cocktail program.
That is joining a lineup the center has been building deliberately. The addition rounds out a group that already includes cool indies like Chefika and Centrale Italia, buzzy chains like Chicken Guy, and reliable mainstays like Broken Egg.
Earlier in the summer, another operator moved into a space many neighbors will remember from taco nights. The space Chido Taco Lounge used to occupy in Preston Hollow Village has a new tenant: Ella at 7949 Walnut Hill Lane, "an intimate, American bistro with modern comfort food" in a refined setting, which opened Tuesday, June 17. In addition to the dining room and bar, the space shares a lounge with Customs Speakeasy. The kitchen is worth a second look. Executive chef Kyle Farr was previously the executive sous chef at Michelin-recognized Sachet as well as executive chef at the beloved and now-closed Bishop Arts spot, Boulevardier.
Notice the pattern across Ella, Fortune House, Chefika, and Centrale Italia: none of them are national brands. Preston Hollow Village is betting that neighbors want operators who have to show up in person to make the food work.
The Plaza is running the opposite play. Its most notable arrivals in the last twelve months are brands making their first move into Texas from somewhere else.
The clearest example opened in late 2025 and is now finding its regulars. At less than two months old at the time of writing, Maman in the Plaza at Preston Center represents the New York-based chain's first Texas location. The scale of the parent brand is easy to miss from the storefront. Founded in 2014 by Benjamin Sormonte and Elisa Marshall, the brand has grown from a single Manhattan café to 50 locations across North America while collecting celebrity fans, a mention from Oprah's Favorite Things, and many notable partnerships. If you were a Trova Wine + Market regular, this is that space reborn. You will find Maman in the former Trova Wine + Market space at 4004 Villanova Street, with a stylishly appointed café and patio open daily through 6 p.m., serving coffee, pastries, and a menu of modern favorites and French classics inspired by the founders' childhood memories. Prices range from $10 to $20 for breakfast entrees, soups, salads, and sandwiches, including the popular "Martha Stewart's Chicken Club."
The second import brought a country debut, not just a state one. A Canadian restaurant company made its U.S. debut at Preston Center on April 1, from a partnership between founder PJ L'Heureux and Tom Gaglardi, owner of the Dallas Stars. The scale is closer to an entertainment venue than a typical neighborhood restaurant. The flagship CRAFT features 10,500 square feet of space designed with local firm ID Studio 4, with a highlight being a 360-degree bar in the center, as well as a rooftop patio, plus 100 beers on tap including local picks, cocktails, wine, and a globally-inspired food menu.
The two together give the Plaza a specific identity: a café that reads New York in the morning, and a room that reads big-night-out after work.
The other thing changing this year is where neighbors are actually spending their weekdays. The at-home worker who used to circle between a kitchen island and a Starbucks now has better options within a five-minute drive.
Kiln Preston Hollow is expected to open in Spring 2026 at The Hill, part of a broader Kiln launch that also includes a Plano location at The Shops at Legacy North later in the year, establishing the premium flexible workspace brand's first network in North Texas. That matters for how the food openings behave. A center with steady daytime professionals gets a different lunch trade than one that only comes alive at 6 p.m.
The single most consequential piece of neighborhood news this year is also the one that will take the longest to feel. The redevelopment of Preston Center itself finally moved from debate to dirt. Construction began in March 2026, with the first completed phase of the project expected in late 2028.
That timeline is worth sitting with. Neighbors have been hearing about a reimagined Preston Center for years, and the argument had genuine history behind it. City planning records show that redevelopment of the shopping center has been debated for decades, with concerns about traffic and encroachment dividing property owners and residents, though a city-backed advisory task force formed in 2015 ultimately unanimously approved a rezoning plan.
The design intent is a shift from a parking-first center to something more urban. Mark Buskuhl of HKS Architects has framed the goal as creating meaningful experiences for tenants and residents that match the value of the real estate, noting that 65 years ago, according to City of Dallas rezoning records, Preston Center tenants primarily included restaurants and service-oriented businesses catering to the surrounding neighborhoods. In other words, the plan is closer to what the center originally was than what it became.
Between now and late 2028, expect construction routing, staged parking changes, and the everyday inconveniences that come with any project of this scale. Also expect the tenant mix at the Plaza to matter more, because it is where a lot of the foot traffic will land while the larger center is under wraps.
Put the three centers side by side and Preston Hollow's food geography in 2026 looks less like a scattered set of openings and more like three coherent, competing visions for how neighbors gather.
The interesting question for anyone who plans to be here in five years is which of these bets ages best. Preston Royal is leaning on celebrity operators, which travels well when the operator stays engaged and can fade when attention moves on. Preston Hollow Village is leaning on chefs, which travels well as long as the chefs are still in the kitchen. The Plaza is leaning on imported brands with real infrastructure behind them, and it is doing that on the eve of a redevelopment across the street that will change the walking pattern of the whole area.
If you are a neighbor deciding where to spend a Saturday night this fall, any of the three works. If you own a home here, the more useful thing to notice is that Preston Hollow's daily texture is being rewritten in real time, and the version we settle into by 2028 will not look much like the one we knew in 2023.
If you would like to talk through how these shifts are showing up on your specific block, or in the market data for a home you own or are considering, The Blackman Group would be glad to sit down with you. Request a complimentary neighborhood consultation and we will bring the local read to the conversation.
What drives The Blackman Group forward is our shared objective to serve clients at the highest level of professionalism, enthusiasm, and energy. Whether helping clients with a sale, a purchase, a lease, a relocation, or an investment, TBG operates with the standard that every transaction be a "'win" for our clients.
The Blackman Group
5960 BERKSHIRE LN STE 700 DALLAS TX 75225