If you've been walking the same loop from your front door to Hillside Village to White Rock and back, you've probably noticed the neighborhood has gotten louder in a good way. Construction paper in windows on Gaston. A ribbon at Hillside in April. A very large sign going up in the old Joann Fabrics on Mockingbird. Different projects, different owners, and yet they're doing something interesting when you look at them together.
The 2026 openings aren't landing in the middle of Lakewood. They're landing on its edges, along the four corridors that connect us to the rest of the city. That means the evenings you used to spend driving to Knox-Henderson or Deep Ellum can, increasingly, stay inside the neighborhood.
The short version, on one screen
| Opening | Where | Corridor | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maman | Hillside Village | Mockingbird | Open since April 23, 2026 |
| My Dream Latin Cuisine | 7260 Gaston Ave. | Gaston | Open since March 2026 |
| Serritella Prime, Serritella Market, COSA Speakeasy | Lakewood (Lakewood Hospitality Group) | Central Lakewood | Opening early 2026 |
| Total Wine & More | 6330 E. Mockingbird Ln. | Mockingbird | Opening August 20 |
| Corsaire | 3525 Greenville Ave. | Lower Greenville edge | Opening spring 2026 |
Hillside Village finally has a morning anchor
Hillside Village has been the neighborhood's most reliable grocery run for years, but the mornings there have always felt like a missed opportunity. That changed on April 23, when Maman, a French-inspired café, opened its second Dallas location at Hillside Village, following its Park Cities debut.
The menu is the interesting part for anyone deciding whether it's worth the walk. Maman Lakewood carries the full espresso and tea program plus housemade pastries and made-to-order savory items, with Dallas-exclusive dishes including the Magnolia Sweet Tea Fizz (cold-steeped magnolia bud tea sweetened with local Texas wildflower honey syrup), the Cheesy Brisket Croissant Roll with Texas smoked brisket and sharp cheddar, a Lone Star Cinnamon Bun, and a Salted Caramel Pecan Pie Roll. Co-founder Elisa Marshall framed the location choice around the neighborhood's "strong sense of community", which is the sort of thing every incoming operator says, but in this case the café is also set up to handle catering and to be booked for private gatherings ranging from casual meetups to intimate celebrations. That's the practical read: it isn't only a stop, it's a room your book club or your kid's team dinner can actually use.
A familiar Gaston address, a very different room
The stretch of Gaston running between Munger and Abrams has one of those addresses that Lakewood residents track by memory. A new family-owned restaurant called My Dream Latin Cuisine is now open at 7260 Gaston Ave., in the space that most recently belonged to Las Favela, and before that, Andrea's Italian for over a decade.
The backstory is worth knowing before you go. The concept comes from Salvador Gamón, originally from Zacatecas, Mexico, who has lived in Dallas since 1992 and spent three decades in local hospitality, starting as a dishwasher and later working as a server and kitchen manager at Matt's Rancho Martinez, Mattito's, Truluck's, and Hugo's Invitados; he partnered with his brother Hugo and niece Ivette Ipina to open the restaurant. Gamón designed a Latin American menu that reflects his cumulative experience at kitchens around the city and the influence of his family cooking together in Mexico.
For neighbors, the interesting part is what a room like this signals. Gaston has cycled through several ambitious concepts at that same address, and the pattern has usually been: outside operator, big buildout, short run. An owner-operator with local kitchens on his résumé is a different kind of bet on the street.
The most ambitious project on the block
Somewhere between announcement and reality is Lakewood Hospitality Group, which has been quietly building the neighborhood's most ambitious food and drink project in years. According to the group's own materials, three concepts are arriving under one umbrella:
- Serritella Prime Italian Steakhouse, described as multigenerational Italian family recipes for pastas and pizzas along with savory Texas Akaushi Wagyu steaks from their ranch
- Serritella Market, offering freshly made pastas, pizzas, sandwiches, breads, pastries, and coffees to go, with a stated focus on convenience and quality
- COSA Speakeasy, positioned as a cocktail lounge for drinks, bites, and live music, meant for dates, business meetings, or a night out
All three are slated to open in early 2026 under the Lakewood Hospitality Group banner. The reason to pay attention is the format. A single operator running a full-service steakhouse, a grab-and-go market, and a late-night lounge in one neighborhood is not a common structure in East Dallas. If it lands, it changes what "going out in Lakewood" means without asking you to leave.
The old Joann Fabrics is about to look very different
For anyone who's driven past the darkened storefront at 6330 E. Mockingbird Ln. and wondered what would take it over: the answer arrives this month. The new Total Wine & More in Lakewood has set an opening date of Thursday, August 20, in the old Joann Fabrics space, which closed in early 2025.
The scale is the story. The Lakewood store will span over 15,000 square feet and carry more than 8,000 wines, 4,500 distilled spirits, and 2,500 beers, plus a lineup of non-alcoholic and THC-infused beverage options. For context on how the chain sees this location, the Lakewood store is Total Wine's 42nd in Texas and 15th in Dallas-Fort Worth, and hours will be 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday. There's also an in-store classroom for customer classes and events featuring winemakers, distillers, and brewers from around the world, which is the piece worth watching if you like the idea of a Tuesday tasting five minutes from home.
The practical read for a Lakewood evening: pair it with Serritella Market for pasta, or a Maman pastry run in the morning after, and you've built a Friday without leaving Mockingbird.
And one more, just over the line on Greenville
Technically Lower Greenville, but close enough that Lakewood folks will notice: the former Pizzeria Testa space at 3525 Greenville Ave., leased to Goodwins owners and operators Austin Rodgers and Jeff Bekavac, is becoming a Mediterranean restaurant called Corsaire, opening in April or May, serving dips from North Africa, Spain, France, Turkey, and Morocco, aimed at families, big groups, and diners coming in for drinks, appetizers, and bar bites. If you liked how Goodwins reads a room, this is the same team working a different cuisine on a corridor you already know.
The pattern under all of it
Zoom out from any single opening and you can see what's happening to the neighborhood map. Mockingbird gets a morning café and a wine superstore on the same corridor. Gaston gets an owner-operator with a decade of local kitchens behind him. Central Lakewood gets a three-concept hospitality project ambitious enough that it comes with its own brand. Greenville gets a Mediterranean room from a team that already knows the street.
The Lakewood Advocate's own writer put it plainly a few months ago, calling Lakewood "a small town within the big city". The town isn't getting bigger. It's getting denser at its edges. That's a good thing for anyone who's owned here a while: the reasons to stay in the neighborhood on a given Thursday keep multiplying, and the corridors that connect Lakewood to the rest of Dallas are becoming reasons in themselves.
If you've been thinking about how the neighborhood is changing and what it means for your block specifically, that's exactly the kind of conversation I love having. Reach out to Brianna East any time. Let's connect.
