The Target Is Going Up. The Distillery Just Left. Same Town, Same Year.

Drive west on Highway 290 through Dripping Springs this month and you pass two versions of the same story within about a mile of each other. Steel is rising on a 26-acre pad at 13786 W. Highway 290, where Target is anchoring a new shopping center called the Village at Dripping Springs. A few minutes down the road, the Deep Eddy Vodka tasting room, open for more than a decade, sits empty and waiting for its next tenant to move in furniture. Both of those things are true about Dripping Springs right now, and neither one is the whole picture.

This is the year Dripping Springs got its first Target and started losing the distilleries that gave it a reputation in the first place. It's also the year Wimberley, fifteen minutes down RR 12, took its own homegrown food truck and turned it into a 30,000-square-foot restaurant without a single national chain involved. Two towns on the same corridor, growing in almost opposite registers at the same time. Here's what's actually happening in each, and what it tells you about the difference between them.

What the Target Actually Brings

The Target broke ground with a construction timeline that runs from early May 2026 to completion by mid-November 2027, according to filings with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation. The 147,000-square-foot store won't open for well over a year. When it does, it joins a stretch of 290 that already has OrangeTheory, Chick-fil-A, Dunkin, Torchy's Tacos, H-E-B, and Jersey Mike's within view. The Village at Dripping Springs plans two more commercial buildings totaling roughly 19,300 square feet, with four additional lots still open for development.

None of that is dramatic on its own. It's the predictable next step for a town absorbing new subdivisions west of Austin. What it tells you is that Dripping Springs' growth right now is largely rooftop-driven retail: national brands filling in service gaps for a population that's already arrived, not a magnet pulling in new visitors.

The Storefronts That Beat It There

While the Target sign was still a rendering, a wave of smaller openings actually happened. Golden Chick opened at 104 Hwy 290, owned by Austin local Tariq Khan, who runs two other locations in the Austin area. Suds Brothers Express Car Wash opened off 290 with washes, polishes, and bug prep. Zen Nail Lounge, owned by Danny Nguyen, opened with more than 30 pedicure chairs and held its grand opening on May 17. Band Aid School of Music brought band programs and summer camps to town. Dixie Tint Pros, owned by Paul Wargo, who also runs a Lakeway location, opened on RR 12.

A few of this year's additions have more personality behind them. Southern Roots Boutique opened downtown at 330 West Mercer Street on June 5, with a grand opening that featured live music from local artist Thomas Babiak. Beerburg Beer Garden opened May 28 with a ribbon-cutting from the Dripping Springs Chamber of Commerce, built around native landscaping and weekend hours from 2 to 8 p.m. And Rice and Oak Thai Texas Grill Kitchen opened downtown on January 2, run by Siwaphan Sampaotong, who spent nearly a decade running the Aroi Thai food truck in Belterra before making the leap to a permanent kitchen.

That last one matters, because it's the same arc Wimberley is running right now, just quieter.

The Quiet Exits

What doesn't show up in a list of ribbon-cuttings is what's been closing. Desert Door, the Texas sotol distillery that helped put Dripping Springs on the map as a craft-spirits destination, closed quietly in April. Dos Olivos Market shut its Dripping Springs location that same month. Juniper Tree Market, a downtown shop selling jewelry, apparel, and decor, closed in January after five years. Garbo's, the Austin-based lobster roll spot, closed its Dripping Springs outpost on January 25, not quite two years after opening, though it continues at two Austin locations and its food trucks.

Then there's Deep Eddy. The vodka brand's Dripping Springs tasting room closed in June after operating for more than a decade. The distillery itself, in Buda, stays open, and the company says it'll keep showing up at Austin events. But the building is changing hands: Goodnight Loving Vodka is moving in this August, turning the space into its headquarters, production line, offices, and tasting room.

That's not a town losing its identity. It's a town's identity changing owners. The distillery country nickname doesn't disappear when Deep Eddy leaves and Goodnight Loving arrives in the same building. But it does mean the businesses that built that reputation aren't the same ones carrying it forward, and that turnover is happening in the same twelve months as the Target announcement, not in some separate, unrelated cycle.

Wimberley Runs a Different Experiment

Fifteen minutes away, Wimberley's biggest food story this year didn't involve a national retailer at all. Neon Armadillo ran as a food truck in Wimberley Square for a full year, from July 2024 to 2025, before moving into a permanent 30,000-square-foot space at the Junction, the spot four miles east of the square where RR 12 meets RR 32. The restaurant is owned by WTX Investment Group, led by Wimberley locals Molly and Micah Bowen, with chef Adam Puskorius, also the operating partner at the Bowens' other restaurant, Creekhouse Kitchen & Bar on Cypress Creek, and co-founder Ryan Zachry running the concept alongside him. By the time Texas Monthly reviewed it, the kitchen was already turning out post oak-smoked brisket and grass-fed lamb carnitas wrapped in housemade tortillas, food serious enough to outpace the casual patio atmosphere around it.

The pattern repeats without a single outside chain involved. Rice and Oak in Dripping Springs followed almost the identical arc, food truck to storefront, owner-operated, local money and local reputation carrying the whole thing forward. Wimberley isn't adding infrastructure to catch up with new residents. It's converting its own food culture into permanent buildings, one truck at a time.

Same Corridor, Different Growth

Here's the thing a quick drive through both towns won't tell you on its own: Dripping Springs and Wimberley are having completely different years, and the difference isn't population or proximity to Austin. It's what kind of new is actually showing up. Dripping Springs is filling gaps for a town that's already grown, with the businesses that defined its earlier identity, its sotol and its vodka tasting rooms, changing hands or closing along the way. Wimberley is doing something closer to organic growth from the inside, turning its own trucks and its own chefs into permanent addresses without needing a national brand to do it.

That distinction shows up in more than restaurant openings. It shows up in what each town will feel like a year from now. Dripping Springs in November 2027 will have a Target, four more open commercial lots filling in around it, and a distillery scene under new ownership. Wimberley, without any single project on that scale, will likely still be running the same experiment: local money, local chefs, one storefront at a time.

Neither pattern is better or worse. They're just different answers to the same question about what growth looks like when it actually shows up on the ground instead of in a headline. If you live along this stretch of 12 and 290, that's worth knowing the next time someone tells you both towns are simply "growing." They are. Just not in the same direction.

For those tracking how this corridor's growth is reshaping property values, land use, and what a lot near either town square is actually worth, TXR Texas Real Estate keeps an eye on both sides of this story. Work With Us when you're ready to talk about what it means for your own piece of Hill Country.