COUNTRY MEETS CITY

Dripping Springs is a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there. I've never understood how it could have so many residents, but offer so few amenities. It's always been more of a bedroom community for Austin commuters than a real town, being just far enough away to offer more affordable housing, but close enough that everyone could drive into the city for all their shopping, dining and entertainment. That is beginning to change, however, due to the string of massive master-planned communities popping up all along the Hwy. 290 corridor, from west of Dripping Springs right on to Austin -- a veritable sea of houses! One of the most immense developments is a 1600 acre community called Belterra, at 290 and Nutty Brown Rd. Though I hope never  to live in one of these developments again, there is one thing I am pretty excited about -- the 93 acre mixed-use development that came as a result of it, and is being developed by the same group that worked on The Domain in north Austin. The anchor is Sky Cinemas, a sister to the art house theater in downtown Austin called Violet Crown. This new one, however, has fourteen screens and will show both popular releases and limited release films, which is how we got to see the movie Tully last week without having to drive all the way to downtown Austin. Woohoo! The shopping center is in it's early stages yet, but there was at least one shop worth checking out -- Breed & Co. -- which is definitely not your typical hardware store!

Another thing we are excited about? Some of the restaurants that are in the works!

Pieous -- a pizza joint more famous for its pastrami -- is our favorite place to eat in Dripping, but from the day it opened it was too small, which made it very hard to get a table.  Hopefully, this newer, larger location will take care of that problem. But probably not, as it will be a good bit closer, and therefore more tempting, to Austin folks.

On my personal burger scale, those at Hat Creek Burgers sit closer to Whataburger than to Hays City, but I do love their outdoor dining pavilion and their playground.

Also in the works, but not yet open, are Torchy's Tacos, The League, Bistro 54, Spec's Wine, Spirits and Finer Foods, and I believe a big HEB as well.

Looks like Hubby's and My "Friday Movie Dates" just got a whole lot more options!