Tarrytown has a reputation for standing still. Formally platted in 1915 and marketed at the time for its "urban forest," the neighborhood still leans on the same tree-lined streets, the same 1920s cottages, and the same short list of landmarks residents have been circling for generations. Spend a weekend walking Windsor Road right now, though, and the "nothing ever changes here" story falls apart pretty quickly.
Two openings in the last four months have quietly filled gaps the 78703 has carried for years. A long-running preservation fight over the neighborhood's western edge got another reprieve last fall. And the summer calendar at Laguna Gloria is denser than most residents realize. If you already live here, this is what shifted while you were mowing the yard.
The Windsor Road shift
The most concrete change sits at 3110 Windsor Rd., where Community Kitchen and Taproom opened this week in Tarrytown, serving plant-based versions of fried chicken, surf and turf, and barbecue plates alongside classic Southern sides. The team is not new to Austin. Co-owners Marlon Rison and Ericka Dotson first launched their business five years ago as Community Vegan, a food truck operating out of a brightly painted 1973 Winnebago on East 11th Street, and the Tarrytown space is their first brick-and-mortar.
The menu translation is more literal than most plant-based restaurants attempt. The menu centers on familiar dishes reworked with plant-based ingredients. Fried chicken is made with oyster mushrooms, nuggets use lion's mane, and dishes like surf and turf combine plant-based steak and shrimp. Hours are limited while the team settles in: Wednesdays and Thursdays from 4-9 pm, Friday and Saturdays from noon to 9 pm, and Sundays from 11 am to 6 pm. Brunch is served from 11 am to 3 pm. The restaurant is currently closed Mondays and Tuesdays. One practical warning worth passing along: the address isn't well-represented on Google Maps yet, but it is correct. Find Community Kitchen between Pak Mail & Austin Pets Alive, facing Windsor Road.
A block over, dessert got easier. Bésame, a spot for ice cream, coffee, and other treats, opened a second food truck in Tarrytown with a soft opening in early April. For a neighborhood whose after-dinner options have basically been Mozart's cheesecake for a decade, a walkable second trailer changes the rotation.
Muny got two more years
The other change is one residents almost missed because it did not involve a ribbon cutting. A decision on the preservation of Lions Municipal Golf Course, or Muny, was given yet another extension amid years of debate over the property by Austin, The University of Texas and local stakeholders. The math behind that fight is worth sitting with. Austin continues to lease Muny from the university for less than $500,000 annually to operate as a public golf course. But UT previously signaled intentions to redevelop some or all of the property that's now appraised at more than $680 million, land the university received under an early-1900s gift with strings attached.
For anyone living inside the Muny walk-shed, that gap between the annual lease and the appraised value is the whole story. Two more years is not permanence. It is a window. Ben Crenshaw still holds the course record at 61 there, and the course is on the National Register in part because it desegregated in 1950, before Brown v. Board. If you have kids old enough to hold a club or grandkids visiting in the fall, this is the summer to actually go.
Tarrytown's calendar reads slow. The stakes underneath it do not. The neighborhood has always been shaped by decisions made about land it does not own, from the Brackenridge Tract in 1910 to the Muny lease renewals still being negotiated today.
What's actually on at Laguna Gloria
The 14-acre Contemporary Austin campus at 3809 W 35th St. is the closest thing the neighborhood has to a shared backyard, and its summer programming this year leans family-first. A partial calendar residents can plan around:
- July 31, 10–11 a.m. Arty Party puppet show at Laguna Gloria with Small Wonders Puppet Theater, followed by a nature-puppet build.
- August 1, 9–11 a.m. A free art-kit morning co-hosted with H-E-B at the Lake Austin store, for anyone who wants to skip the grounds and stay closer to Enfield.
- August 8, 10 a.m.–2 p.m. A community art quilt build titled "Dear Me," with a pen-pal station and free stamps while they last.
- October 18, 2 p.m. The Very 'Rary 2026, the museum's annual fall event on the grounds.
- Thursday evenings, 6–8 p.m. Free staff-led Lantern Tours of the sculpture park, capped at ten tickets per slot, so advance reservations matter.
The everyday move most locals underuse: Thursdays are free admission days. This is a significant perk for visitors looking to experience the art without a fee. If your workday ends near 35th and Mopac, a 5:00 pass through the Betty and Edward Marcus Sculpture Park before dinner at Hula Hut is a routine worth building.
The lake-adjacent rotation, updated
Tarrytown's food-and-coffee bench is short but deep, and the roster changes just often enough that a refresh is warranted. What's holding up in 2026:
Mozart's Coffee Roasters on the water. Live music runs Thursday through Sunday on the deck, and the free Wi-Fi and huge outdoor tables still make it the neighborhood's default remote-work overflow.
Hula Hut for the Tex-Mex-Polynesian bit that has anchored Lake Austin Blvd for years, tubular tacos included, patio directly over the water.
Quince, the lakefront restaurant whose menu covers roughly every cuisine, remains the neighborhood's most flexible sit-down option when you have a mixed group.
Pool Burger, the tiki bar and burger shack next to Deep Eddy Pool, is still the smart move on a hot afternoon that started with a swim.
Flo's, the wine bar and bottle shop with an attached pizzeria, has quietly become the couples-dinner option that used to require a downtown drive.
Goldy's, the semi-permanent food trailer at Littlefield's with a large outdoor seating area, does the job when kids need to burn off energy while you eat.
Tumble 22 on the Nashville-hot-chicken end of the spectrum, and Magnolia Café on Lake Austin Blvd, still 24/7, are the two spots to remember when the rest of the neighborhood's kitchens have closed.
Tarrytown Pharmacy, open since 1941, remains the one-stop for everything the chains do not carry, and it is genuinely worth patronizing if you want the corner of the neighborhood that feels 1953 to survive another decade.
Where residents actually walk
The park math in Tarrytown is better than the acreage suggests once you stitch it together. Mayfield Park, a 21-acre site adjacent to Laguna Gloria, still has the free-roaming peacocks and the gardens, and it is the most reliable "out-of-town guests just landed and I have 45 minutes" answer in the zip code. Reed Park covers the playground-and-picnic use case for families with younger kids. Walsh Boat Landing is the public put-in for anyone with their own kayak or paddleboard, and the surrounding outfitters handle rentals for everyone else.
Two civic anchors most newer residents forget exist: the Howson Branch of the Austin Public Library, sitting a block north of Exposition and Windsor, and the West Austin Youth Association fields, which host the weekend sports schedule that gives the neighborhood most of its Saturday-morning social life. Both are walk-to for a huge portion of the neighborhood's households and both are free.
An August game plan
If you want a concrete short list for the next four weekends without leaving 78703:
- Saturday morning. WAYA fields, then breakfast tacos, then a Bésame stop for a coffee-and-something-frozen combo on the walk back.
- Thursday evening. Free admission at Laguna Gloria at 5:30, Lantern Tour if you booked one, dinner at Hula Hut or Quince after.
- Sunday brunch. Community Kitchen from 11 to 3 for the plant-based version, or Magnolia Café for the 24/7 version, whichever mood you woke up in.
- Any afternoon over 95 degrees. Deep Eddy Pool, then Pool Burger, in that order, non-negotiable.
- Muny tee time. Book seven days out online for Monday through Thursday, Monday at 8 p.m. for the following weekend. Two years of lease certainty is not a lot of two years.
The point of all of this is not that Tarrytown has become somewhere else. It has not. The 1920s cottages are still here, the peacocks are still here, the pharmacy is still here. But the picture of the neighborhood a lot of residents carry in their heads is one or two updates out of date, and a walk down Windsor with fresh eyes fixes that in an afternoon.
If you or a neighbor are thinking through what any of these shifts mean for a home on your block, or for one you have been quietly watching a few streets over, Easley Group knows this stretch of Austin at street level and would rather have the conversation early than late. Let's Connect.