Chile Relleno at Mi Cocina

Chile Relleno at Mi Cocina

About a month ago, editor Christina Hughes Babb reported about the current status of the Lake Highlands Town Center. One reader commented on the article, in hopes that whoever ends up anchoring the development would bring additional restaurants to the area:

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“I would love to see more restaurants similar to Mi Cocina and Picasso’s [in Lake Highlands.] Those places get packed at dinner times and …there is clearly demand for additional similar restaurants.”

The suggestion reminded me of similar thoughts expressed by Scott Wynne, another neighborhood resident and vice president-finance for ING Clarion Partners. Regarding Lake Highlands having a hard time attracting national retail, Wynne told Advocate editor Keri Mitchell back in 2011:

“You go into Mi Cocina, you go into Mariano’s, you go into Picasso’s, and they’re packed,” he says. “I think we’re really underserved, and when you go into those places, the lines there and the people there back that up.”

Wynne is one of many neighbors convinced that a Purple Cow — the family-friendly burger joint at Preston and Royal — would do well in Lake Highlands.

Any independent restaurant like this would receive a warm welcome in our neighborhood, Wynne says, and some corporate eateries would fare well, too.

“People here don’t mind a chain restaurant, just not a run-of-the-mill chain restaurant that’s all over the place — not the same place you’re eating at in Columbus, Ohio, or Chicago, Illinois,” Wynne says.

Unfortunately for Wynne, and us, we’ll have to cross the hope of Purple Cow Restaurant moving into the neighborhood off the list for now — the restaurant closed its remaining Texas location in Preston Hollow on March 5, after 16 years of business.

Comparing the above sentiments for desiring family-friendly, “not run-of-the-mill chain” restaurants suggests that the retail/restaurant landscape in Lake Highlands hasn’t changed all that much since 2011.

Could Sprouts/whoever is the anchor tenant at the Lake Highlands Center, bring more restaurants of Mi Cocina or Picasso’s caliber to the neighborhood? Or will we have to “tweak” (to use District 10 Councilman Jerry Allen’s phrase) our hopes for family-friendly restaurants in the town center to resemble the fast food chains that exist in Trammell Crow’s (who’s the LH town center developer) Timber Creek Development?