For a generation, the intersection of Preston and Royal was the errand corner. You stopped for a prescription at Dougherty's, grabbed something from Eatzi's, and drove south to Knox or west to Uptown when you actually wanted dinner. That drive is getting shorter.
Between September 2025 and September 2026, the Preston Royal and Preston Hollow Village stretch quietly became the kind of place you leave the neighborhood to visit, not the place you leave from. The tenants that opened here in the last twelve months are not filler for empty bays. They are concepts with New York and Los Angeles pedigrees, chef résumés that read like a Michelin index, and design budgets that show.
The thesis, in one line
Preston Hollow's corner is no longer competing with Snider Plaza and Lovers Lane on convenience. It is competing with them on ambition, and in a few categories, it has already won.
What changed, and where
Tenant | Address | Occupies former | Debuted |
|---|---|---|---|
Palladino's Steak & Seafood | 5959 Royal Ln., Ste. 635 | Spec's | June 16, 2026 |
Bird's Bookstore | 6025 Royal Ln., #207 | A massage studio next to Eatzi's | September 2025 |
Cantina La Rosa | Preston Hollow | Fernando's | Early 2026 |
Ella | 7949 Walnut Hill Ln. | Chido Taco Lounge | June 17, 2025 |
Fortune House | Preston Hollow Village | New build-out | September 26, 2026 |
Five arrivals inside a fourteen-month window, all within a short drive of one another, is not a coincidence. It is a landlord posture. Joseph Palladino has said he was approached by Preston Royal's landlords to open at the center, and he took the deal because Dallas made sense as a second location for the concept, particularly at the Preston and Royal intersection.
Palladino's, and why the corner earned a New York steakhouse
The most-watched of the openings is the one that took over the Spec's box. Palladino's Steak & Seafood opened June 16 at 5959 Royal Ln., at Preston Road and Royal Lane, in the former Spec's space. The restaurant occupies nearly 10,000 square feet in Preston Royal Village.
Two facts about the operator matter for anyone reading this as a neighborhood story rather than a review. First, this is not a debut concept. Joseph Palladino was on the founding team of Nick & Sam's Steakhouse and helped launch the Coal Vines pizza chain. Second, the design is not off-the-rack Dallas. The Dallas location was designed by Rockwell Group, the international firm that also created the New York restaurant.
The kitchen is staffed accordingly. Executive chef Sam Hazen's résumé includes Michelin three-star Le Gavroche, Tavern on the Green, and Tao, with Henry Johnson serving as chef de cuisine. If you want to try it on a weeknight, the bar opens at 4:30 p.m. and dinner service begins at 5 p.m., with hours running to 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday.
Royal China, the incumbent that refused to age out
Two suites away from Palladino's, the restaurant that has been here the longest is having its best press year in decades. Royal China was founded in 1974 and sits in a back corner of the Preston Royal shopping center. In July 2026, Garden & Gun ran a full feature on it.
The reason is a rare one for a fifty-year-old restaurant. Over the past generation, many longstanding Chinese restaurants closed or went buffet. Royal China took a different path, with April Kao explaining that as customers evolved, the restaurant changed to remain part of their lives.
The tell is at the center of the room. Chefs pull noodles and roll dumplings in front of customers at a bar added in 2008, and the menu expands well beyond Americanized favorites to include specialties from Wuxi, Sichuan, and Shanghai. The cold-noodle order the magazine sent people in for: the Dan Dan Mian and the chicken noodles in peanut sauce, both served cold and built for triple-digit days.
If you have lived here long enough to remember Royal China as the place you took the in-laws in 1998, this is a reasonable summer to reintroduce yourself.
Bird's Bookstore, and the argument for slow Tuesday afternoons
Three doors down, in a suite that used to house a massage studio, is the arrival that will matter most for daily life. Bird's Bookstore opened in the Preston Royal shopping center at 6025 Royal Ln. #207, in a former massage place next to Eatzi's.
The owners are locals. Emily and Drew Dawson opened Bird's in the Preston Royal shopping center with earthy wood interiors, an eclectic mix of books and fashion and lifestyle magazines, a collection of artisanal regional goods, and an on-site café. The design brief was specific. MMaison Interiors designed the space as a blend of mid-century modern and Scandinavian simplicity.
What is actually on the shelves matters more than the paneling. Bird's carries 6,000 titles across adult, YA, and children's books, plus curated design and coffee-table books, and stocks the buzziest new reads alongside classics. The café in the back pours coffee from Oak Cliff Coffee Roasters and pastries from Bresnan Bread and Pastry in McKinney, with gluten-free options from Unrefined Bakery. The retail selection includes design-forward magazines, stationery, and ceramics from local artist Marcello Andres.
"I don't want you to come in and just see every Rizzoli book you see at every other store," Emily Dawson has said of the buying philosophy.
The shop is also becoming an events room. Over the next six months Bird's plans to host events highlighting local authors, with past and future guests including Katie Bernet, Sarah Damoff, and Jill Sayre. Hours to know: Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Sundays from noon to 5 p.m.
Preston Hollow Village catches up
The other cluster worth watching is east on Walnut Hill. Preston Hollow Village spent most of the last decade as a lease-up story with a rotating cast of tenants. The 2025 and 2026 additions have started to give it a center of gravity.
Ella landed first. In the space Chido Taco Lounge used to occupy, Ella opened at 7949 Walnut Hill Lane as an intimate American bistro with modern comfort food, sharing a lounge with Customs Speakeasy. The kitchen matters. Executive chef Kyle Farr was previously executive sous chef at Michelin-recognized Sachet and executive chef at the beloved and now-closed Bishop Arts spot Boulevardier.
Cantina La Rosa followed a few blocks west, taking over a space Preston Hollow residents have been driving past for years. The new Tex-Mex spot opened in Preston Hollow in the former Fernando's space, from the owners of Dallas' Smoky Rose. The operating team is deep: David Tripplehorn Cash is teaming with first-time restaurateur Cameron Levine, Smoky Rose executive chef Rolando Garcia, and Smoky Rose co-owner Oscar Aroche.
Fortune House is next. Exterior signage is up and DuWest Commercial Real Estate has confirmed a September 26 opening at Preston Hollow Village, marking the third location for the Shanghainese restaurant, joining an Irving original and a Lower Greenville outpost. Since launching in 2015, Fortune House has earned a "Best Dumplings" nod from D Magazine for its xiao long bao, available in traditional pork, blue crab, and black truffle.
Read those three together and Preston Hollow Village has now placed a Michelin-veteran bistro, a Tex-Mex from a proven operator, and one of the region's most-cited dumpling houses inside the same walkable retail block.
A Saturday you can actually walk
For residents who want a concrete way to test all of this in a single afternoon, an itinerary that stays inside a two-mile radius:
- Coffee and a magazine at Bird's between 10 and 11 a.m., when the café is quiet and the new-release shelf has been restocked.
- A walk on the Northaven Trail, which runs east to west just north of Preston Hollow and links to parks and other North Dallas areas.
- A cold-noodle lunch at Royal China during the 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. window before the bar fills up.
- Errands at Eatzi's or the shops around the Pegasus.
- Dinner at Palladino's after 5 p.m., or at Ella on the Preston Hollow Village side.
- If it is a Saturday after September 26, swap dinner for soup dumplings at Fortune House.
None of that requires the tollway.
What this means for the block
The corner that used to be a stop on the way somewhere is now, for the first time in a long time, a destination in its own right. That is not a sentimental observation. It is a statement about what a Preston Hollow home is worth on a Friday night, and about how the daily geography of living here is quietly redrawing itself around two intersections rather than a highway.
If you have been here for twenty years, the invitation is simple: the neighborhood is worth rediscovering on foot this fall. If you are thinking about what your next chapter here looks like, The Ryan Group would be glad to talk. Schedule a free consultation whenever the timing is right.
