Hill Country Restaurant Updates 10/15/26

🆕 Un Mundo De Sabor, the award-winning Mexican trailer, is back parked at Willow Lake Watering Hole & Mercantile in downtown Wimberley.

🆕 FM Pizza has traded its trailer for a real front door on Ranch Road 12, and the slices are now served indoors daily except Tuesday.

🆕 After four years on RR 12, Kelly's Hill Country BBQ has announced it's closing for good — and this week's craving is the margarita at Flores Mexican Restaurant on East 290.

🆕 Hill Country Nutrition (Wimberley / RR 12) — A loaded-tea and protein-shake bar is getting ready to open in Suite 20 at 14500 Ranch Road 12, pitched as a place for neighbors to meet over a drink instead of a meal. The menu runs to zero-sugar energy teas, dessert-flavored protein shakes and protein iced coffee, all made to order in a few minutes. No opening day has been announced yet, but their own site is live with the address and phone number posted.

Still in the pipeline: The Forager, the botanical tea-and-apothecary shop on Ranch Road 12, has quietly swapped its September promise for "Fall 2026," and The Cat's Meow boba and tea house up the road still has no opening date — though it has put a four-day tea party on the calendar for mid-November. No new restaurant filings hit the state or county logs for Dripping Springs, Driftwood, or Wimberley this week.

🆕 FM Pizza (Wimberley / Ranch Road 12) — The by-the-slice shop that spent its first stretch in a trailer has officially moved into a brick-and-mortar room in the Wimberley Commons strip, and the dough is still the whole point: unbleached, unbrominated flour and a 24-hour ferment. Pies are 18 inches and sliced eight ways, from a plain regular up to the spicy boy with cupping pepperoni, pickled jalapeños and hot honey. They're open daily except Tuesday, so go ahead and get the half-and-half.

🆕 Un Mundo De Sabor (Wimberley / Old Kyle Rd) — Luis Mendoza's trailer — an Austin Monthly best-new-restaurant pick — is back parked outside Willow Lake Watering Hole & Mercantile in downtown Wimberley. The food leans El Paso: 44 Farms beef-cheek barbacoa, Berkshire pork carnitas, campechano with griddled cheese, Muenster-stuffed enchiladas in a red chile sauce, and genuinely good vegan tacos built on cauliflower al pastor. The same truck also works the Driftwood side of the valley at Mean Eyed Cat, where Tuesday is taco night.

A short stroll off the Square at 110 Old Kyle Road, Willow Lake has quietly turned into the valley's most dependable Friday night — a bar and music venue with its own kitchen, a pizza window, and an award-winning taco trailer parked out front. The food is split between the house pizza menu (the sausage-and-honey pie with sautéed onion, mozzarella, goat cheese and honey is the one to get) and Un Mundo De Sabor's tacos, which means a table of four can order in three directions and everybody wins. This Saturday they host the first-ever Wimberley Chili Cook-Off & Music Fest, with the chili fires lit at 9 a.m., tasting from noon and the Red River Shootout on the big screen at 2:30. Pro tip: Monday is all-day happy hour with a dollar off everything and Tuesday pairs any Un Mundo taco with a $4 Dos Equis or $5 margarita — go on a weeknight if you'd rather hear yourself talk.

📍 110 Old Kyle Rd, Wimberley, TX 78676

📖 Want the full story on Willow Lake Watering Hole & Mercantile — the backstory, hours, and what to order? Read our complete write-up at LocalEats.News/austin-hillcountry

🆕 Briggs Distilling Co. (Driftwood / Brownson Ln) — MAJOR UPDATE: the family-owned whiskey distillery's grand opening is officially this Saturday, October 17, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., free and open to the public. The new 9,000-square-foot indoor-outdoor space will pour handcrafted cocktails and boozy snow cones with live music all afternoon, and the distillery has now named its permanent on-site food truck — A.T. Eatz, doing burgers, wings and fries. It's one of the few new tasting rooms around here opening with a real kitchen attached from day one.

Our weekly pick: a local favorite worth the drive.

🍽️ Flores Mexican Restaurant (Dripping Springs) — When the question is "where's the margarita," the honest answer on this end of 290 is the Flores family's bar, which pours a whole page of them. The house margarita starts at nine dollars frozen or on the rocks, the La Flor is the family's hand-shaken version with 100% agave tequila and Cointreau, and the Pepino Picante brings cucumber and jalapeño if you want some heat with it. The kitchen behind the bar is straight-ahead Tex-Mex — enchiladas with your choice of sauce, sizzling fajitas, and a Maria's Plate regulars order without looking. Open Tuesday–Wednesday 11 to 9, Thursday–Saturday 11 to 10, Sunday 11 to 9, closed Monday.

❌ Kelly's Hill Country BBQ (Wimberley / RR 12) — Kelly Evers, the middle-school social studies teacher who got hooked on competition barbecue and turned it into one of the valley's most-loved trailers, has announced he's closing for good and putting the business up for sale. In a post on their own page, the owners said the financial strain had become more than they could carry, and that as hard as they'd fought to make it work, it was time to let it go. Evers had been smoking in Wimberley since the Creekside Cookers days, and the brisket and the Wimbo sandwich earned a following well past Hays County — the owners say their Blanco River Wing Company truck is still up and running.

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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.