A Year of New Tables Along the Corridor

This isn't a roundup of places that opened this week. It's a look back at the past year, because the pace of new restaurants along the corridor is itself a story about how fast this end of the county is growing. When a national steakhouse and a Houston chef both decide Magnolia is worth a location inside the same stretch of months, that tells you something the traffic counts already hinted at.

The biggest name is Texas Roadhouse, which opened last fall at 14365 FM 1488. The steaks, ribs, and fresh rolls are the draw, and the parking lot most evenings tells you the town had been waiting for it. It's the kind of anchor that pulls other tenants in around it.

A quieter arrival, and maybe the more interesting one, is D'Alba Craft Kitchen. The scratch kitchen out of Houston's Garden Oaks, run by owner Daut Elshani, moved into the former Philipose's space near FM 2978 and FM 1488. The menu leans Italian-casual: from-scratch pizzas and pastas, a signature balloon bread, blackened salmon, plus a happy hour and a weekend brunch. Elshani has said he saw a gap out here for that style of sit-down place, and bet on it.

Out toward Dobbin, Don Julios opened on Dobbin-Huffsmith Road at 28303, Suite D. Fajitas, enchiladas, tacos, and a full bar, in a part of the map that is going to see a lot more neighbors in the next few years. It's a good early marker of where the growth is heading.

None of this is us telling you where to eat. It's a snapshot of a corridor adding tables about as fast as it adds houses. If your family runs a restaurant here, old or new, the annual business profile in this paper is free, and never dressed up to look like anything but what it is. Tell us where you're sending people to eat this summer.