The summer you were promised at closing looked different from this one. Canyon Grille was going to be the same Canyon Grille. The Square at Lakeway was going to have a Main Street by June. Lake Travis was going to be either fully back or fully gone, and either way you'd have stopped watching the LCRA gauge by now.
None of that happened. What did happen is that the daily map inside the gate and along Lohmans Crossing quietly reset this spring, and the version of Rough Hollow you actually get to use in July 2026 is not the one anyone described in January. That is the whole post: three specific anchor points moved, and it changes where residents are spending Wednesday nights and Sunday mornings.
Canyon Grille Is a Different Restaurant Now
The Grille above the Yacht Club closed on April 6 and reopened eight days later as a fundamentally different operation. Canyon Grille at Rough Hollow announced a full transformation in concept, leadership, and ownership beginning April 6, 2026, when the restaurant temporarily closed, then officially reopened Tuesday, April 14, 2026 with a new concept sourcing Central Texas ingredients from the Hill Country to the Gulf Coast. The new owner is local developer Haythem Dawlett, who has a history of working on local developments, including his work as a principal with Legend Communities on the Rough Hollow community and the upcoming Square at Lakeway.
That last detail is the one worth sitting with. The person who developed the neighborhood now owns the neighborhood's restaurant. Menu-wise, that has produced a pecan-crusted trout, a crab-stuffed flounder, a wagyu burger, and shishito peppers that reviewers keep mentioning. Operationally, it produced two things residents actually feel: a 10% discount on food items to Rough Hollow residents who present their key fob, and two access points to the Marina, one of which is the funicular located at the end of the outdoor patio, the other by boat. Happy hour runs Tuesday through Friday from 3 to 6 p.m. with $2 off starters, cocktails, glasses of wine, and domestic beer; brunch is Sundays 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
If you had a standing Grille reservation from 2024, the room is the same and the view is the same. The kitchen isn't.
The Lake Is Usable, With an Asterisk
Every summer since the 2022 drop, the first question at the Highland Village pool has been some version of "is the lake actually a lake right now." This summer the answer is yes, mostly.
| Metric | Full pool | Mid-July 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Elevation | 681.0 ft | ~671.4 ft |
| Capacity | 100% | ~84.5% |
| Gap to full | 0 ft | ~9.6 ft |
Lake Travis is currently at 671.4 ft above mean sea level, 84.5% of conservation capacity, 9.6 ft below full pool of 681.0 ft, per LCRA Hydromet data. Context matters here. Earlier this year, Lake Travis was sitting at 76% "full," and forecasters noted that under "wet conditions" water levels would rise. They did. The lake gained roughly eight percentage points of capacity between spring projections and mid-July, which is why the ramps at Mansfield Dam Park and the Rough Hollow Marina are behaving like they should for the first time in a while.
The marina itself is running at full posture. The marina is home to more than 294 boat and jet ski slips and features a dual-car tram, a fully stocked Ship Store, fuel dock with pump-out services, member lockers, and members-only restrooms and showers, and members enjoy complimentary access to non-motorized watercraft, including stand-up paddleboards and kayaks. Beyond the marina, RHYC features a fitness center, resort-style infinity pool, and a 2,700-square-foot event pavilion overlooking Lake Travis.
The asterisk is that a nine-foot gap still exposes rock shelves that were underwater in the pre-drought years. If you paddle out of a cove you know by memory, know it by the current water line.
The Square Is Still a Fence
The most honest thing you can tell a new neighbor about Lakeway this summer is that the town center they were shown in a rendering is still fenced dirt. The Square at Lakeway is a new mixed-use town center developed in partnership with the City of Lakeway featuring a 5-acre public park surrounded by residential areas, retail shops, restaurants, and a destination hotel, designed to host community events including concerts, classic car shows, art fairs, and farmer's markets.
Designed to. Not doing.
Legend Communities formally broke ground on The Square in 2022 with an estimated one-year completion timeline for its first phase, but construction has stalled, and the project team recently requested its fourth amendment to the PUD outline. That fourth amendment landed in January. Council required the new Main Street accessible off Lohmans Crossing Road to be completed by Jan. 31, 2027, later than the previous June 30, 2026 deadline. The Square's residential construction is now expected to kick off later this year, followed by work on Phase 2 starting in late 2027. A 35-year tax rebate deal worth up to $47 million under Texas' Chapter 380 program was withdrawn by the applicant in January after being posted for council consideration.
Translation for someone who lives here: the farmer's market, the concert lawn, the walkable retail block anchored by a destination hotel — those are 2027 and 2028 conversations, not 2026 ones. Plan accordingly.
Where People Are Actually Spending Their Weekends
Because the town center didn't arrive on schedule, the load has shifted to the anchors that did. A working July map for a Rough Hollow resident looks like this:
- Wednesday evening, Lohmans Crossing. Lakeway Nights Farmers Market brings local produce, artisan goods, food vendors, live music, and community energy to Lohmans Crossing, operating Wednesdays from 4–8 p.m. This is the closest thing to what The Square was supposed to be, and it exists now.
- Friday sunset, Yacht Club. Happy hour at Canyon Grille, then the funicular down to the marina.
- Saturday, inside the gate. Highland Village is doing more work than it was designed to. The amenity campus is unusually deep: three pools, lazy river, tennis, pickleball, and basketball courts, soccer field, playscape, dog park, sand volleyball, event pavilion with demonstration kitchen, and a conference room, plus a BMX track, with 22 miles of scenic hike and bike trails attached. RHYC's programming calendar is in a rebuild moment: the new Director of Memberships and Events is working on a new calendar and will release it once it is completed, with Trunk or Treat at the Welcome Center on Oct. 22, 2026, fitness classes moving to the Welcome Center Pavilion Nov. 9, and a Grinch after-school event Dec. 18 already locked in.
- Sunday brunch or a lake day out. Brunch at Canyon Grille from 11 to 2, or a longer drive to The Oasis, opened by Beau Theriot in 1982, a four-tiered food and entertainment fortress overlooking Lake Travis with a capacity of 2,500 known for its sunsets, with the Oasis Texas Brewing Company rooftop next door.
The dining bench along RR 620 and Lohmans is also reshuffling underneath this map, and it matters because two of the restaurants your neighbors used to name-drop are gone or going. The League Kitchen & Tavern closed after 15 years in the area, having served American-style cuisine including burgers, sandwiches, appetizers, confections, and cocktails, closing Feb. 25. Replacing it in the sit-down rotation, quietly: SP Brazilian Steakhouse, where guests start with a self-serve salad bar filled with more than 34 options, then use red and green cards to signal chefs to bring 14 cuts of meat including picanha, lamb chops and filet mignon, with a salad bar included in the dinner ($59.95) and lunch ($39.95) prices. Coming, though the sign isn't up yet: Cousin Louie's, an Italian-American restaurant from the T4C restaurant group with a new Lakeway location. Hops & Thyme, Sixty Three at Lakeway Resort & Spa, Sundancer Grill at Sail & Ski, and Café Lago all still hold their positions.
The Short Version
Three things moved this spring. The neighborhood's on-site restaurant is under new ownership by the developer who built the neighborhood. The lake climbed enough to make the marina and the ramps feel normal without quite feeling full. And the town center that was supposed to give Lakeway a working Main Street by this June is running about eighteen months late, which has pushed daily-life gravity back onto Highland Village, the Wednesday market at Lohmans Crossing, and the calendar the Yacht Club's new events director is still writing.
That is the summer of 2026 in Rough Hollow. Not the one on the sales-office loop, but the one you can actually book a table at.
If you're deciding what to do with your own address in the neighborhood this summer, whether that's a lakeside home you're thinking about listing before school starts or a Vista Ridge homesite you're weighing against a resale on The Peninsula, Soomin Kim Group can walk you through what's actually moving on the ground here right now. Schedule Your Free Consultation.
