Hudson House Is Coming to the Shops at Highland Village — and Construction Starts This Week

If you've been making the drive to Lakewood or Highland Park every time you want a proper raw bar and a martini that doesn't taste like it sat on the counter, that trip is getting a lot shorter.

Hudson House breaks ground this Tuesday, July 1, at the Shops at Highland Village. The Dallas-born concept — known for East Coast oysters flown in daily, a wraparound bar, sushi, and what the brand calls the "World's Coldest Martini" — will take over the space on Justin Road that used to be Corner Bakery Café and a Pilates studio. State filings put the construction budget at just under $1 million, with work expected to wrap in November.

The target opening is fall or winter 2026.

This will be Hudson House's 12th location. The only one in southern Denton County. Every other outpost — Addison, Fort Worth, Frisco, Las Colinas, Preston Hollow, Lakewood, Rice Village, River Oaks, West Village — sits well south or east of here. Highland Village has quietly been the gap on that map for years.

The space will run nearly 6,000 square feet. Vandelay Companies, the parent group, says the Highland Village location will feature the brand's signature leather booths, a large wraparound bar, a sit-down raw bar, and an outdoor patio — a layout that works well in a pedestrian-friendly shopping center where evening foot traffic actually spills between restaurants.

Hunter Pond, Vandelay's founder and CEO, pointed to the shopping center's community feel as the draw. "The Shops at Highland Village offers a strong sense of community and has become a destination for dining, shopping and gathering," he said in a press release.

The stakes here go beyond one restaurant. The Shops at Highland Village competes against every other retail-dining cluster in the Metroplex for the same discretionary dollar, and a draw like Hudson House — which genuinely pulls diners from across North Texas — signals that the center can still land concepts with real gravity. If it works, expect more of them to look at Justin Road. If the location underperforms, that conversation gets harder to have.

Watch for construction equipment at the old Corner Bakery end of the center. It'll be visible for months. The payoff, if the November completion holds, is a reservation you can walk to from the parking lot you already know.