Lakewood news

Venerable Dallas center Hillside Village welcomes 9 new tenants

Froggie's 5 & 10

A venerable Dallas shopping center is enjoying some churn: Hillside Village at Abrams Road and Mockingbird Lane in Lakewood has nine new tenants whose offerings include gift, massage, ice cream, and cake.

Ward Kampf, president of the landlord Northwood Retail, says in a release that the center is very special and generates lots of interest.

"We are asked about this asset more than anything else within our Dallas portfolio, including interest from concepts coming off the best streets in the west side of L.A.," he says. That's probably a reference to SusieCakes, the bakery CultureMap reported on in November.

"The center has a dynamic community feel, which we have been thoughtful to retain as we’ve brought in new national, regional, and local retailers and eateries," he says.

He also touts current tenants including Manny's Tex Mex, White Rock Coffee, and Dream Café, skirting entirely any mention of the pandemic, which surely had a hand in the center experiencing some turnover?

Here's the list:

Froggie’s 5 & 10 and Betty Lou - Now Open
Dallas’s oldest and most iconic toy store is now open at Hillside Village, after departing its location on Knox Street. Froggie’s 5 & 10 provides toys and gifts for all ages. The store will share a retail space with sister company Betty Lou, a boutique with greeting cards, home décor, seasonal gifts, candles, books, and more.

F45 Training - Now Open
F45 Training is a fitness center chain based in Austin with more than 1,750 studios in 45 countries, that offers "functional" 45-minute workouts. Hmm, they seem to like the number 45. They have a database of 3,900 unique functional training movements so you can get a new workout every day.

Ferrari Orthodontics - Now Open
Ferrari provides a personalized approach to orthodontics that includes making every effort to create a comforting and supportive environment.

Pet Bar - Now Open
Newly opened tenant is a subscription-based washing and grooming facility with self-service options. The business also offers pet taxi services for those who don’t have time to take their pet to the vet or training facility.

Parlor's Handcrafted Ice Creams - Opening Spring 2022
This will be Parlor's first brick-and-mortar shop. The local company does nostalgic ice cream flavors made with grass-fed milk and eggs from local farms, with other ingredients from local small businesses they say use sustainable and organic practices.

Susie Cakes - Spring 2022
California-based chain is known for layer cakes and frosting-stuffed cupcakes made with ingredients like Guittard chocolate and European-style butter. This will be their third DFW location: they debuted with a location in Dallas' Preston Center in March 2016 and also have a location in Fort Worth which opened in 2017.

Boardroom Salon - Coming Soon
Relaxed grooming stop for men. The location will offer an "elevated experience" for consultations, haircuts, shaves, styling tips and more.

Massage Heights Coming Soon
Personalized massage therapy treatments.

openings

Pasta News

Downtown Dallas tasting restaurant embraces new Italian theme

Sauvage

Pasta at Sauvage Dallas

A chef-driven restaurant in downtown Dallas is shifting gears: Sauvage, the fine-dining concept near the Statler Dallas hotel known for its multicourse tasting experience, is diving into a more fluid approach by taking on a new identity each month.

Their new model will begin in February with an embrace of Italian food. Each ensuing month will usher in a new theme, driven primarily by cuisine.

According to chef Casey La Rue, it's just a fine-tuning of the seasonal approach that the restaurant already takes.

"Sauvage has always shifted with the seasons — ingredients come and go, dishes evolve, small changes happen constantly," he says. "The rotating theme lets us explore a cuisine, a perspective, and a set of flavors more deeply, while still staying grounded in the local farmers, ranchers, and producers we work with every day."

Casey opened Sauvage with his wife, Amy La Rue, in September 2025 at 1914 Commerce St. as a tasting-menu-style restaurant with just 12 seats and two seatings per night. The restaurant is a collaboration, with Casey serving as chef and Amy, who is a pastry chef, doing desserts and breads; the couple also owns La Rue Doughnuts, the massively popular artisan shop at Trinity Groves.

Their unique approach included cooking everything on a wood fire, eschewing traditional methods such as a deep fryer. They'll still make the wood fire the centerpiece, but with an embrace of Italian food. That means pastas made in-house, plus meats and seafood with Italian ingredients and techniques.

The starting menu includes dishes like gatto di patate — smoked potato with a savory custard and caviar, or couscous rustico with Wagyu beef cheek.

"We'll be making couscous in-house — it's 'rustico' because it's handmade and the couscous pearls won't be uniform in size or shape," Casey says.

There'll be smoked Wagyu beef rib, crusted not in the usual salt and pepper but with olives instead, and served with lion's mane mushrooms; and carne cruda with venison and crispy sunchoke which he describes as "an Italian tartare."

Other courses include Gulf prawn sausage with Swiss chard, boar belly with parsnip puree, and opening dishes such as focaccia with Gulf snapper baccala spread.

Desserts include spumoni, an eye-catching ice cream confection that originated in Naples and is hugely popular in the Northeast, featuring three distinct layers of cherry, pistachio, and chocolate ice cream; white coffee tiramisu, a decidedly chef's take with a coffee-cocoa gel and hazelnut sabayon; and zeppole — ricotta doughnuts, summoning the restaurant's doughnut-shop sibling.

"Part of our motivation is that we didn't want to be doing the same thing over and over," he says. "When customers come in, they invariably ask when the next menu change will take place. Changing to a new theme or identity every month also gives our staff a chance to get creative."

downtown chefs openings