Stand at Preston Road and Royal Lane on a Tuesday night and you'll see two different neighborhoods. On one corner, a shopping center that took a direct hit from a 2019 tornado is now the subject of an $800 million tower fight that just cleared a City Plan Commission vote. On the diagonal corner, a new steakhouse from a Nick & Sam's veteran is running a full dinner service, and a Tex-Mex restaurant with a following in Snider Plaza just opened a much bigger second location next door. Same intersection, same week, entirely different story.
That split is the thing worth understanding if you live here. Not because you need to have an opinion on building heights, but because it explains why one part of your neighborhood feels like a construction zone and another part just got noticeably better for dinner.
The corner fighting for its life
The southwest corner of Preston and Royal has been a hard sell for years. The EF-3 tornado that tore through North Dallas in 2019 damaged the shopping center there and stripped much of its tree canopy, and the site never fully recovered its retail tenants. Today it holds Escondido Tex-Mex, Gazebo Burgers, a Chase Bank branch, and a scattering of health and wellness shops on roughly seven acres that developers Leland Burk and Greenway Investment Company want to turn into something far bigger.
The proposal has moved through several versions since it was first filed in January. Early plans sought a 325-foot tower, 28 stories on a corner currently capped at 54 feet. After sustained pushback, including more than 250 blue protest cards filed by nearby property owners, the design came down to a 19-story hotel and condominium tower reaching 240 feet, an 18-story apartment building, a 12-story office building, and a half-acre public green space. The Dallas City Plan Commission approved the zoning change on Aug. 6. The proposal now heads to the full City Council, which has not yet set a date for the final vote.
Neighbors on Orchid Lane and the surrounding streets, organized as Preserve Preston Hollow, are still not sold. Resident Susan Cox called the plan "outrageously out of character of Preston Hollow in mass, style, and height," and Bruce Bleakley, who lives nearby, put it more plainly: he moved to a quiet residential neighborhood that's zoned that way, and there are no big developments anywhere close. Whatever gets built here, it won't be finished for years, and the corner will look like a construction site for most of that time.
The corner that didn't wait for a vote
Walk or drive to the opposite side of the intersection, to the EDENS-owned Preston Royal Village, and none of that uncertainty applies. This is where Joseph Palladino, the former NYPD officer turned restaurateur behind Nick & Sam's Steakhouse and the Coal Vines pizza chain, opened Palladino's Steak & Seafood on June 16 in the former Spec's space at 5959 Royal Lane. The kitchen is run by executive chef Sam Hazen, who spent years with Tao Group, and the space was designed by Rockwell Group, the firm behind Palladino's original New York location inside Grand Central Terminal. Dinner service runs 5 to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 5 to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday, with the bar opening at 4:30.
A week ago, on Aug. 10, El Molino opened its second location two doors down at 6025 Royal Lane, in the former Anchor Sushi Bar space. The original El Molino in Snider Plaza built a following on wood-fired fajitas and flaming margaritas in an 83-seat room. This one is 6,000 square feet, big enough to hold the daily happy hour from 3 to 6 p.m. that made the first location a regular stop. Elsewhere in Preston Hollow, Cantina La Rosa, the Tex-Mex concept from the team behind East Dallas's Smoky Rose, is now open for lunch and dinner in the former Fernando's space.
None of this required a zoning hearing. EDENS didn't need City Council approval to lease space to Palladino's or El Molino, because nothing at Preston Royal Village is being torn down. The investment there is a bet on the neighborhood as it already exists, not on what it might become after a redevelopment fight resolves.
Preston Center is running the same experiment
A mile and a half south, at Preston Road and Northwest Highway, the pattern repeats almost exactly. The Plaza at Preston Center, on the southeast corner, finished a $5 million facade refresh last year and now sits at 90 percent occupancy. Frenchie, the all-day French brasserie from Travis Street Hospitality, the group behind Knox Bistro and Le Bilboquet, has been open there since June 2025 and has become part of the regular rotation alongside Muchacho, Trova Wine + Market, Il Bracco, and one of only two DFW locations of True Food Kitchen. Newer additions to the roster include Trina Turk, the contemporary fashion boutique that relocated from West Village, along with Y-OHR and an expanding Viva Day Spa.
A short walk away, on the Douglas Avenue side of Preston Center at 8300 Douglas, a different clock is running. RAMROCK Real Estate, Lincoln Property Company, and HKS Architects broke ground in March on a $200 million mixed-use project that will eventually add Class AA office space, a residential tower, and new ground-floor retail, with the first completed phase expected in late 2028. Target and CVS are staying. Wang's Chinese Cafe, Yolk, and AT Bistro, Au Troisième are not. They've already closed to make room for construction, according to reporting from People Newspapers. Longtime resident Nicole Scholle called the corner overdue for a change, saying it had needed a glow-up for some time. Others aren't as sure. DD Rogers put her concern this way: our community's signature charm is being eroded little by little, as locally owned spots give way to something bigger.
In the middle of all that, CRAFT Restaurant & Beer Market opened April 1 on the western edge of Preston Center, at 5974 W. Northwest Highway across from Village Baking Co. It's the first U.S. location for the Calgary brewpub chain, founded in 2011, a partnership between founder PJ L'Heureux and Dallas Stars owner Tom Gaglardi, and it's not a small bet: over 10,000 square feet indoors plus a 5,000 square foot rooftop patio, seating for more than 500, and a beer program built around 100-plus taps that includes local names like Peticolas Brewing Company and Celestial Beerworks.
Here's the shape of it at a glance:
| Location | What's happening there | Where you can actually eat right now |
|---|---|---|
| Preston/Royal, southwest corner | $800M+ tower cleared City Plan Commission Aug. 6; Council vote still pending | Escondido Tex-Mex, Gazebo Burgers, for now |
| Preston Royal Village (EDENS) | No rezoning in progress | Palladino's Steak & Seafood, El Molino |
| Preston Center, the Plaza | $5M refresh complete, 90% leased | Frenchie, Muchacho, Trova, Il Bracco, True Food Kitchen |
| Preston Center, 8300 Douglas | $200M redevelopment broke ground March 2026; first phase late 2028 | Target and CVS remain; Wang's, Yolk, and AT Bistro have closed |
What this means if you just want dinner tonight
The practical takeaway is simple. If a restaurant just opened in Preston Hollow this year, chances are it landed on the side of an intersection that isn't waiting on a City Council vote. Palladino's, El Molino, Cantina La Rosa, Frenchie, and CRAFT all represent real capital going into spaces the ownership groups control outright, with no pending zoning case attached. The corners still working through hearings and protest cards are the ones where you'll keep seeing orange fencing and hear about closures before you hear about openings.
None of this requires picking a side in the fight over tower heights or density on Douglas Avenue. But it does explain something that might otherwise seem contradictory: how a neighborhood can be in the middle of its most contested development fights in years and also be having one of its best runs for new restaurants at the same time. They're not really competing stories. They're happening on different corners of the same two intersections, and knowing which corner you're headed to is the difference between showing up to a favorite spot and showing up to a parking lot.
If you're weighing what a home near either intersection might be worth once the dust settles, or you're curious how these projects could shape values on your specific block over the next few years, that's exactly the kind of neighborhood-level read Hewitt+Saucedo tracks closely. Reach out for a free home valuation or to talk through what's actually changing on your street.
