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🔝 TOP 3 IN 10 SECONDS
⭐ Angel's Icehouse (Spicewood) is this week's Featured Spot — five dog-friendly acres on Highway 71, a neon sign with a story, and more than twenty years as Spicewood's front porch.
🆕 A $1.8 million restaurant-and-retail building called SpiceQ was just filed with the state for Highway 71 in Spicewood — no operator named yet, construction slated for 2027.
😋 This week's craving is a margarita: Santa Catarina in Lakeway, where the agave margaritas are $8 every day from 4 to 6 — and Spicewood has two Oktoberfests on Saturday.
🏗️ COMING SOON & NEW FILINGS
🆕 SpiceQ (Spicewood / Hwy 71) — A new state filing, registered September 17, describes a single-story restaurant-and-retail building of about 10,000 square feet on Highway 71 in Spicewood, with a $1.8 million price tag. The owner is a local company called SpiceQ LLC, and construction is scheduled to start in January 2027 and run into the summer of 2028. No restaurant or operator has been named, so this is a long-lead one to file away; we'll tell you who's cooking as soon as it surfaces.
⏰ ETA: Construction Jan 2027 – July 2028
📍 Address: 5600 State Hwy 71, Spicewood, TX 78669
🌐 Website: TBD
📞 Phone: TBD
Still in the pipeline: Cousin Louie's, the Italian-American spot headed for the old League Kitchen & Tavern space in Lakeway, still has no opening date. No other new restaurant filings hit the Lakeway, Bee Cave, or Spicewood logs this week.
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✅ NOW OPEN (LAST 60 DAYS)
Quiet week for brand-new doors — no new restaurant crossed into our 60-day window in Lakeway, Bee Cave, or Spicewood. We scan the filings, the trade press, and the chamber calendar every week, so the next new spot to open around the lake will show up here first.
⭐ FEATURED SPOT
Angel's Icehouse — Spicewood
Childhood friends Mary Blumer and Sara Shulman opened Angel's on Highway 71 more than twenty years ago, back when — as Blumer once put it — people thought they were crazy because there wasn't a single home out that way. The 1950s red neon sign out front came from a Pasadena, Texas, restaurant run by a family named Angel, and the five acres behind it have grown into a dog-friendly yard with a playscape, a stage, and, since a 2023 renovation, 21 taps. The kitchen keeps it honest — the Tucker Plucker chicken sandwich, the Bocephus Burger, a black-and-bleu ribeye salad — and the margarita list runs eight deep. Open Sunday–Thursday 11 to 9 and Friday–Saturday 11 to 11, with happy hour weekdays 3 to 6.
📍 Address: 21815 State Hwy 71 W, Spicewood, TX 78669
🌐 Website: angelsicehouse.com
🍽️ Menu: https://www.angelsicehouse.com/food-drink
📞 Phone: 512-264-3777
📖 Want the full story on Angel's Icehouse? Read our complete write-up — the backstory, the menu, and what to order — at LocalEats.News/austin-laketravis.
🍷 DRINKS WATCH — NEW ON THE WINE & BEER TRAIL
🆕 5 Soul Wine Co. (Spicewood) — The family winery on Bob Wire Road — the one that shares its ten acres and pickleball courts with Frontyard Brewing — filed with the state on September 11 for a distiller's permit, the license that lets a place make its own spirits and pour them in a tasting room. Nothing has been announced, so for now it's a filing and not a plan, but it would put a still next to the wine. The tasting room is open Wednesday and Thursday from 4 and Friday through Sunday from 11, closing at 9PM.
⏰ ETA: TBD (permit filed)
📍 Address: 4514 Bob Wire Rd, Spicewood, TX 78669
🌐 Website: 5soulwine.com
📞 Phone: 512-809-1672
😋 THIS WEEK'S CRAVING — BEST MARGARITA / HAPPY HOUR
When the new-opening board is quiet, we point you to a neighborhood staple worth the trip. This week we're craving a margarita.
Santa Catarina (Lakeway) — Cousins Jesus Hernandez and Francisco Cortez opened Santa Catarina on RR 620 in 2011 after years in two of Austin's best-known interior Mexican kitchens, and the bar follows the same rule as the food: the agave margarita is made with organic agave nectar and fresh lime juice, never a mix. Happy hour runs every day from 4 to 6, with $8 agave margaritas and $7 guacamole and quesadillas. Stay for dinner — cochinita pibil, a seafood-stuffed poblano, chile en nogada — on house-made corn tortillas. Open Monday–Thursday 11 to 9, Friday–Saturday 11 to 10, and Sunday 10 to 9.
📍 Address: 1310 RR 620 S, Ste A-4, Lakeway, TX 78734
🌐 Website: santacatarinarestaurant.com
🍽️ Menu: https://www.santacatarinarestaurant.com/menu
📞 Phone: 512-300-0946
📅 AROUND THE LAKE — THIS WEEK
Friday 10/2
First Friday wine specials at Stone House Vineyard, Spicewood · 12–6p
Saturday 10/3
Oktoberfest at Frontyard Brewing, Spicewood · 12–6p · stein-holding contests and pretzel necklaces
Oktoberfest, weekend two, at Highway 71 Brewing, Spicewood · 12–10p · special beer releases and German eats
Garden Party: A Fall Affair at Stone House Vineyard, Spicewood · check their page for the time
Sunday 10/4
Bee Cave Farmers Market at Hill Country Galleria, Bee Cave · 10a–2p, free
❌ RECENTLY CLOSED
❌ Papa Murphy's (Lakeway) — The take-and-bake pizza shop on RM 620 South has closed for good; a sign on the door reads, "Thank you for all the years of support." Its parent company said this summer that it planned to close up to 50 Papa Murphy's stores nationwide. No word yet on what takes the space.
📍 2303 RM 620 S, Lakeway, TX 78734
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P.S. Corrections welcome. If I got something wrong, email me at [email protected] — I try to double-check everything, but I’m human.