If you've lived in 78757 for more than a few years, you already know the old map of the neighborhood by heart. Little Deli for a slice, Top Notch for a burger and a memory of Dazed and Confused, Tacodeli on the corner of Burnet and Northland for the pre-work migas run. That map still works. But somewhere between late 2025 and this summer, a second map got drawn on top of it, and almost all of the new pins landed on Burnet Road.
This is a post about that second map. Not a "best of" list. A working guide to what has actually opened, who is behind it, and what it changes about a normal Tuesday night at home.
The thesis, in one paragraph
For most of the last decade, Crestview's social center of gravity sat on the east side of the neighborhood, near Lamar and Airport, anchored by Crestview Station and the old strip that holds Little Deli, The Violet Crown, and Pocha Is Back one block over. The recent wave of openings has quietly moved the center west. Burnet Road between roughly 70th and 79th is now the denser stretch, and one hospitality group in particular is responsible for a large share of it. If you feel like you've been driving west more often to meet friends, you're not imagining it.
The new arrivals, in one place
Here is what has actually opened along or immediately off Burnet in the last several months, with what the research supports.
| Spot | Address | Opened | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|
| Foxtail | 7001 Burnet Rd | November 2025 | Neighborhood cocktail lounge, low-key |
| Black Gold | Crestview / North Austin | Nov. 9 | Craft meats and cocktails |
| Mama Betty's (2nd location) | Burnet Rd | Recent | Tex-Mex, same menu as Parmer |
| Sosu | Burnet Rd | Soft opening | Izakaya: gyudon, handrolls, tempura |
| Ciccio Bomba (pasta sibling) | Burnet Rd, across from Pinthouse Pizza | Recent | Housemade pastas, crudos, short ribs |
A few of these deserve more than a table row.
Foxtail and the Carrier5 cluster
The single most useful thing to know about the new Burnet is that a lot of it shares an owner. Foxtail opened at 7001 Burnet Rd in November 2025 as a relaxed neighborhood cocktail lounge, owned by Jason Carrier, the restauranteur behind Mama Betty's and Happy Slice Pizza under Carrier5 Hospitality. That is the same group whose Mama Betty's second location opened on Burnet Road with the original menu intact and a happy hour running a $7 frozen margarita and half-price select appetizers from 3 to 6pm Monday through Friday.
Why this matters for a resident: three of the closest new places on Burnet are effectively one operator running a slate of concepts a few blocks apart. Practically, that means consistent service standards, cross-staffed teams, and the kind of decisions like weekday happy hours that only make sense if you know your customers live within walking or a five-minute drive. It also means the "new Burnet" is less a bunch of unrelated restaurants opening at once and more a deliberate build-out.
Sosu, Black Gold, and the range
The rest of the wave fills gaps that Crestview genuinely didn't have.
Sosu, located on Burnet Road, is an izakaya offering a classic menu of Japanese pub staples including gyudon, handrolls, and tempura, currently in soft opening with a limited food and drink menu but expected to expand. Before Sosu, the closest thing to a walk-in izakaya required a Mopac trip.
Black Gold, a craft meats and cocktails joint, opened in Crestview on Nov. 9, with a menu including a double-cut pork chop topped with jalapeño and mango, a filet topped with a baby bella mushroom sauce, and a steak served with chimichurri and corn salsa. This is the first real steak-forward room the neighborhood has had at that price point without driving toward the Domain.
And on the pasta side, the newer Burnet Road sibling to Ciccio Bomba focuses on housemade pastas, crudos, and slow-cooked short ribs, sitting across from Pinthouse Pizza. If you have kids and want a pasta night that isn't a chain, the drive got a lot shorter.
The most quietly useful part of this cluster isn't any single restaurant. It's that a resident on Woodrow or Arroyo Seco now has three genuinely different weeknight dinners inside a ten-minute walk, and none of them existed two years ago.
What this does to the classics
The east side of the neighborhood isn't losing anything. The classics still do what they do, and they still do it better than the new places for their specific purposes.
- Little Deli & Pizzeria for a New York slice and a pastrami sandwich, still the standard for a lazy lunch.
- Top Notch for the burger with a movie-history bonus. Top Notch is an old-school burger joint in Crestview most famous for appearing in Dazed and Confused.
- Tacodeli at 7301 Burnet Rd for breakfast tacos on the way to work, or a quick dinner before a movie. The Crestview location is a go-to for locals in Allandale and Brentwood grabbing breakfast tacos on the way to work or swinging by for dinner before heading to catch a movie at Alamo Drafthouse off of Anderson Ln.
- The Violet Crown for coffee in the morning and a bottle of wine on the way home. The Violet Crown is a coffee shop, wine bar, and bottle shop in Crestview.
- Pocha Is Back for a late-night second dinner. Pocha Is Back is a late-night Korean pub near Airport and North Lamar.
- Enchiladas Y Mas for the Sunday family dinner. Enchiladas Y Mas is a lively, always-bustling restaurant with enchiladas, fajitas, and potent margaritas on Anderson Lane in Crestview.
- SOHA and Bamboo House for Korean and Sichuan respectively, both still holding.
The change is the routing. Two years ago, a "let's just walk somewhere" night pointed east toward Lamar. Now it splits: east for coffee and casual, west for a sit-down dinner and a proper cocktail.
A working week, rewritten
If you want the practical version, here is what the last twelve months have made possible without leaving 78757.
- Monday happy hour: Mama Betty's, 3 to 6pm, frozen margarita for $7.
- Tuesday date night: Sosu for handrolls and a small tempura order, then a walk to Foxtail for one drink.
- Wednesday family pasta: Ciccio Bomba's Burnet sibling, then a slice from Pinthouse across the street if the kids are still hungry.
- Thursday burger night: Top Notch, unchanged since it should be.
- Friday steakhouse without the drive: Black Gold.
- Saturday morning: Tacodeli migas, coffee at The Violet Crown, then Brentwood Neighborhood Park for the pool and the walking path.
- Sunday: Little Deli lunch, Enchiladas Y Mas dinner. The bookends of old Crestview.
If your calendar looks anything like that already, you've felt the shift without naming it.
One more thing worth tracking
The Crestview Neighborhood Association sits between residents and the City of Austin and keeps a running newsletter on what's happening block by block. If you don't already, it is worth subscribing directly through the Crestview Neighborhood Association. The Burnet Road build-out is going to keep generating parking, sidewalk, and zoning conversations, and the CNA is where those actually get worked out. For the food side, both The Infatuation's Austin openings guide and City Cast Austin's opening roundup are reliable places to check what's landed since this post went up.
Un último apunte
Crestview has always been the neighborhood people call a "hidden gem" right up until they can't stop talking about it. The Burnet corridor is the current chapter of that. If you live here, the useful move is to try the new places on a weeknight before the word fully travels, and to keep the classics on the standing rotation they've earned.
Si tienes preguntas sobre lo que está pasando en tu cuadra o quieres platicar sobre la casa donde vives, Victor Barrios está a un mensaje de distancia. Let's Connect.
