Senior Design Manager

Wonder announces grand opening date for Gaithersburg location. Published July 29, 2026 at 4:25PM Wonder has announced grand opening plans for its new Gaithersburg location, with a three-day soft opening beginning Monday, Aug. 10, followed by its official grand opening on Thursday, Aug. 13. Video Muted The modern food hall concept will hold a soft opening from Aug. 10 through Aug. 12, operating daily from 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. Customers who reserve a time slot will be able to receive up to $15 off their meal while the team completes final testing ahead of the official launch. The grand opening will take place on Aug. 13 at 10:30 a.m., when the first 100 guests will receive an exclusive Wonder gift with a qualifying purchase. Wonder describes itself as a modern food hall concept that allows customers to order menu items from more than 20 restaurant brands in a single pickup or delivery order. Operating from a centralized kitchen, the company offers everything from burgers and pizza to salads, Asian-inspired dishes, desserts and more. Veterinary Emergency Group (VEG) and STRONG Pilates will occupy the other two created spaces. As previously reported, Wonder signed on for the Kentlands project earlier this year as part of the subdivision of the former Party City storefront. Wonder recently opened its first Montgomery County location in North Bethesda and additional locations planned for Burtonsville and Germantown.

A look at Wonder's expansion strategy on Long Island. The blueprint: * Wonder opens new location in Port Washington * Plans to open in Great Neck and Massapequa Park * Raised $650 million in Series D funding * Partnerships with chefs Bobby Flay, Marcus Samuelson and others Wonder is continuing its expansion, bringing its multi-brand food hall concept to Port Washington this week with plans on Long Island to open in Great Neck next, and then Massapequa Park. The Port Washington grand opening on Wednesday followed a two-day soft launch earlier in the week, giving locals their first look at the brand while allowing employees to fine-tune operations before full-scale service began. People dropping into a Wonder restaurant for the first time may pause initially, determining how the concept works and then how to place an order. But team members and guides are there to help. A "brand ambassador" at the front of the shop "essentially talks to every guest and tells them a little bit about what we do," Xavier Illescas, the company's market launch operations leader, told LIBN during the soft opening in Port Washington. "We try to engage every guest because sometimes people just don't know us." Wonder brings together offerings from well-known restaurant brands and celebrity chefs such as Bobby Flay, Marcus Samuelson and Michael Symon, alongside favorites like Tejas Barbecue and Magnolia Bakery - all under one roof. The company already has a number of Long Island locations. The concept is designed to serve families and groups of people who "want to order different items and are having a hard time selecting," serving as a "one-stop shop," Illescas said. While few businesses have access to the kind of capital fueling Wonder's expansion - the company recently raised $650 million in Series D funding - its approach to opening new locations offers lessons that smaller operators can apply. By introducing the concept, engaging with local customers and training team members and then refining operations before a full launch, Wonder, led by founder and CEO Marc Lore, aims to establish itself in new communities. The latest funding round reflects investor confidence that the model can continue expanding. "It's been exciting to watch the evolution of what Wonder is building - a fundamentally new way for people to access great food, at a level of quality and speed traditional players can't match," Tony Florence, co-CEO of investor NEA, said in a statement announcing the financing. "Our ongoing investment reflects our confidence in that model and in Marc's ability to continue executing at scale." Before a soft opening, Wonder sends out discount offers through direct mail and on social media, joins the chamber of commerce and delivers food drops at places that are important to a community, including fire departments and children's programs. "The soft opening for us is a way to introduce ourselves to the community," Illescas said on Monday. "We're pushing a lot of promotion now, just to get a lot of volume of orders," he said. "And the reason for that is to get the team repetitions and for quality control. So, we get used to how the volume is going to be during regular business, and the community gets to try us. It's a win-win." Illescas typically spends two weeks at each location - first for training, and then for the opening. And at all Wonder locations, each menu offering has already been carefully developed. "We have a research and development kitchen in New Jersey," Illescas said. "Chefs will come in and partner with us... We'll create a menu together that can be replicated in our sites." In addition to partnering with chefs, the company also owns Blue Ribbon Fried Chicken, Mighty Quinns BBQ, Blue Apron and others. And some Wonder sites have room for guest kitchens, which led to a partnership with Ess-a-Bagel, a popular bagelry in Manhattan. Right now, Illescas said, Tejas Barbecue is the top selling brand at Wonder. "Barbecue has been a big driver for us," Illescas said.

The Southlake reset: what opens between now and Oktoberfest. July 23, 2026 If you have lived in Southlake for more than a season, you already know the rhythm. Town Square gets a new tenant, the parking pattern shifts for a month, and by the time your neighbors are asking whether the place is any good, you have quietly folded it into your Tuesday routine. What is unusual about this stretch of 2026 is the density. Between July and October, roughly a dozen openings land inside a walkable spine that runs from State Street through Grand Avenue and out to Park Village, and one anniversary weekend caps the whole thing. Here is the claim worth holding as you read: this is not a scattered wish list. The new arrivals cluster tightly enough that a resident can rebuild a weeknight rotation, a Saturday errand loop, and a fall calendar without ever leaving the same three-quarters of a mile. That geographic compression is the story. The individual restaurants and shops are supporting evidence. The coffee-to-cocktail corridor just got denser. Start at the west end. Dallas-based Ascension Coffee is taking over the former Corner Bakery location in Southlake Town Square, bringing its full espresso bar, single-origin slow bar, seasonal coffee flights and elevated all-day menu. Ascension Coffee is scheduled to open in August 2026, which places it in the window when families are recalibrating around the school-year schedule and looking for a morning anchor that is not a drive-through. Walk east and the retail spine has already begun to shift. ON Running will open its first store in Tarrant County at Southlake Town Square, in a 6,000-square-foot space at 415 Grand Avenue East, situated between Alo and Sunglass Hut. Reformation is also establishing its first Tarrant County retail location, occupying a 2,007-square-foot space at 213 Grand Avenue, positioned near lululemon and YETI. Home furnishings retailer Crate & Barrel is slated to open an 18,945-square-foot store at 321 State Street, adjacent to Tyler's, with an anticipated opening near Independence Day 2026. Then keep going. A mile east on Southlake Boulevard, Park Village gets its own anchor when Hudson House moves into the spot vacated by RA Sushi inside Park Village, opening in the summer of 2026 as the 11th location operated by Vandelay Hospitality Group. The address is 1131 E. Southlake Blvd., next to Gloria's. Expect warm leather seating, an inviting wraparound bar, and a lively patio, plus the raw bar and the martini program the chain built its name on. Here is what that looks like on one map: | Opening | Where | When | | Ascension Coffee | Former Corner Bakery, Town Square | August 2026 | | Crate & Barrel | 321 State Street, next to Tyler's | Near July 4, 2026 | | ON Running | 415 Grand Avenue East | Second half of 2026 | | Reformation | 213 Grand Avenue | 2026 | | Hudson House | 1131 E. Southlake Blvd., Park Village | Summer 2026 | Five of the six anchors sit inside a three-quarter-mile stretch. That matters more than any single opening. What actually changes about A weeknight. The generic version of this post would stop at the list. The version worth writing asks what a resident actually does differently. Consider the pre-2026 pattern for a Southlake household hosting out-of-town family on a Wednesday. Coffee before the visit meant a chain or a drive to Grapevine. Dinner meant Del Frisco's Grille, Truluck's, or the Kirby's rotation. Post-dinner drinks were usually a nightcap at home because nobody wanted to hunt for parking twice. The new configuration lets you compress that evening. Coffee at Ascension in the morning, an oyster and a martini at Hudson House at six, and a walk back through Grand Avenue before the fireworks-hour rush. The Park Village-to-Town Square axis becomes a single outing rather than two. For residents whose reason for choosing Southlake in the first place was walkable adult evenings without a downtown commute, that is a meaningful upgrade. The retail additions do a similar thing on the errand side. ON Running's first Tarrant County store and Reformation's first Tarrant County retail location both eliminate a NorthPark or online-only workaround. Crate & Barrel's 18,945 square feet at 321 State Street replaces a drive to Plano for the kind of registry-and-refresh trip that used to eat a whole Saturday morning. The Wonder wildcard. The most interesting opening is also the least understood. The innovative food hall concept Wonder is preparing to make its DFW debut in Southlake, allowing guests to order from more than 20 restaurant concepts in a single transaction, bringing together menus from renowned chefs and brands including Bobby Flay and Marcus Samuelsson. Construction is expected to wrap by mid-June, positioning Wonder for a summer opening. The reason to pay attention is not the celebrity chef roster. It is the format. Wonder solves the problem every parent of teenagers already knows by name: the household that cannot agree on cuisine. The concept offers a solution for groups with different cravings, allowing diners to mix and match cuisines without compromising on convenience. Whether Southlake residents adopt it as a weeknight default or file it under "nice for guests" is genuinely uncertain. The fact that the concept chose Southlake for its DFW debut, rather than Legacy West or Preston Hollow, is worth noticing. Circle October 16. Everything above sets up the fall marker. The next Oktoberfest Southlake is scheduled for October 16-18, 2026, and this one is not a normal edition. Oktoberfest Southlake turns 25 in 2026. The scale is easy to underestimate if you have only attended once. Oktoberfest Southlake is one of the largest three-day festivals in the area, hosted by the Southlake Chamber of Commerce and attracting over 100,000 visitors annually. Free admission, live music on three stages, and the wiener dog races that draw a bigger crowd every year. If you have been treating it as a background event, the 25th is the year to plan around it rather than through it. Practical resident note: the new Ascension Coffee will be roughly 90 days old by then, Hudson House will be finding its rhythm, and Crate & Barrel will be past its opening rush. October 16 through 18 is the first weekend when the whole reconfigured Town Square operates at full tilt at the same time. A residents' shortlist for the next 90 days. For the neighbors who have asked what is actually worth trying and when: * Week of the Ascension opening in August. Go on a weekday morning before word gets out. The slow bar is what separates it from the coffee you are already drinking. * Any Wednesday in September. Book Hudson House at six, walk the Grand Avenue block before dinner, and use the outing to see whether the raw bar becomes your default over the Kirby's rotation. * Late September. If you have a Crate & Barrel registry gift or a fall refresh in mind, this is the calmer window between opening buzz and the holiday rush. * October 16 through 18. Park once. The 25th anniversary is not a repeat-visit weekend. * Fall through winter. Watch what Wonder actually does with the format. If the technology works, it changes the answer to "what do we do tonight" for a household with three different votes. When the time comes to talk about the rest of it. None of the above is a reason to move, and if you already live in Southlake it is not meant to be. It is a reason to notice that the walkable center of the city is getting denser, not thinner, in a year when a lot of suburban retail is quietly contracting. That density is what your home is buying you, whether or not you ever ask a listing agent to put a number on it. When the conversation does eventually turn toward positioning a home, refinancing a renovation decision against resale, or helping a friend understand why Southlake reads differently from its nearest comparisons, the Marcontell+Gilchrest Group is glad to talk. Contact Marcontell-Gilchrest Group when the moment is right.