Hill Country Restaurant Updates 10/29/26

🆕 Coach's Hill Country BBQ is MAJOR UPDATE news out of Wimberley — Kelly's old trailer on RR 12 is reopening under a new name, run by local coaches.

🆕 Longleaf Craft Kitchen + Bar on the Wimberley Square is handing its kitchen to co-chefs Sarai and Luis Feliz for a new concept called El Confit Longleaf.

🆕 This week's craving is dessert — Abby Jane Bakeshop out on Fitzhugh Road, the stone-milled-flour bakery sharing a roof with its own grain mill.

🆕 Coach's Hill Country BBQ (Wimberley / RR 12) — MAJOR UPDATE: the trailer that closed as Kelly's Hill Country BBQ this month is getting a new name and a new chapter at the same pit on Ranch Road 12. The team behind it says the cooks are coaches for a local high-school sports team, which is where the new name comes from, and the reopening menu will lean on Kelly's old favorites — brisket, ribs, the Wimbo sandwich, brisket tacos and banana pudding. No reopening date or hours have been announced yet, but the site is live and taking shape.

🆕 El Confit Longleaf (Wimberley Square) — Longleaf Craft Kitchen + Bar is in the middle of a changing of the guard: the restaurant's own page says it's transitioning to a new team, with co-chefs Sarai and Luis Feliz bringing their project, El Confit Longleaf, into the historic 1912 building on the Square. The current Longleaf team says familiar faces will stay on through the transition, and they're inviting guests to stop in for a meal while they're still there. No transition date or opening date for El Confit has been announced.

🆕 Sakura Sushi & Bar (Belterra / Dripping Springs ETJ) — A filing shows Sakura-Texas LLC has put in a new TABC beer & wine application for a second Sakura Sushi & Bar location, this time landing in the 78737 zip out toward Belterra. The original Sakura Sushi & Bar has been a Lakeway staple on Medical Dr, so this reads as a genuine expansion rather than a paperwork renewal. No word yet on a timeline, but neighbors who've been driving to Lakeway for their sushi fix may soon have something much closer to home.

Quiet week for brand-new doors — nothing crossed into our 60-day window this week that we haven't already told you about. Proper Ash and Briggs Distilling are both still settling in from recent issues, and we'll flag the next new opening the second it surfaces.

Longleaf has been the Wimberley Square's dependable farm-to-table table since 2019, tucked into a historic 1912 building that was saved board-by-board from demolition and reassembled right on the Square — but the kitchen is about to change hands for the first time, with co-chefs Sarai and Luis Feliz stepping in to launch El Confit Longleaf inside the same walls. The current team is still serving the menu regulars love while the handoff plays out, so there's still time to catch the old guard's cooking before the new chapter begins. It's the kind of news that makes you want to go twice: once for the Longleaf you know, and again once El Confit opens its doors. Pro tip: Longleaf is currently open Monday and Thursday–Sunday 11 to 10 (bar later Fri–Sat), closed Tuesday and Wednesday — go this week if you want the classic menu before the transition.

📖 Want the full story on Longleaf Craft Kitchen + Bar — the backstory, hours, and what to order? Read our complete write-up at LocalEats.News/austin-hillcountry

Quiet week on the trail — no new winery, brewery, distillery or tasting-room filing surfaced for Dripping Springs, Driftwood or Wimberley this week. Treaty Oak Distilling remains an open question for us — the Fitzhugh Road property's own site shows live hours, but we still can't fully reconcile that against third-party listings, so we're holding off until it's settled either way. The moment anything new pours in, you'll read it here first.

Our weekly pick: a local favorite worth the drive.

It's the last stretch for the Driftwood Fall Festival's pumpkin patch, maze and corn pit at Vista Brewing before it wraps for the year on November 1 — go this weekend if you haven't made it out yet, and the standing Sunday and Wednesday markets are both running as usual.

Nothing we can confirm closed around the valley this week. If you've seen a sign on a door, send it our way.

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✌️ Until next Thursday,

Nolan K.

P.S. Corrections welcome. If I got something wrong, email me at [email protected] — I try to double-check everything, but I'm human.