Beloved Austin Restaurant Shady Grove Gets a Second Act in Kyle
Designer Kim Lewis mixed original furnishings, retro details and clever budget finds to create the new space’s nostalgic 1970s look
For nearly three decades, Shady Grove was synonymous with everything we love about Austin: live music, genuine hospitality and an easygoing, come-as-you-are spirit. When the restaurant shut its doors on Barton Springs Road in May 2020, a piece of old Austin seemed to disappear with it.
But as it turns out, Shady Grove’s story wasn’t over. Years later, a broken air conditioner serendipitously brought owner Rusty Zagst and interior designer Kim Lewis, who’d worked with him on Shady Grove before, back together. Lewis had relocated her team to Cosmic Saltillo for the day when she spotted Zagst discussing plans for a new project. “It felt a little like divine intervention,” she recalls.
That project would become A Little Shady, which opened in Kyle on Aug. 4 with a full menu of Shady Grove favorites. Designed by Lewis and her team, the restaurant honors its predecessor without simply recreating the past.
The time capsule
Long before A Little Shady was even a dream, many of the pieces that would define its design were already waiting for Lewis in storage. “Rusty was obviously not ready to let go, so he saved furniture, lighting, nostalgic art pieces, the panther—with the hope that he would reopen someday,” she explains. “Starting with these pieces that were already iconically Shady Grove and using them to create A Little Shady was a total joy and an absolute honor.”
Having a literal time capsule to draw from—rather than relying on new elements to manufacture nostalgia—immediately set this project apart from others. Some of the details are small, like an original Shady Grove postcard hidden like an Easter egg on the postcard wall. Others, like the panther, are proudly on display, an immediate sign to old Shady Grove regulars that, finally, they’re home.
Lewis and her team resurrected old art and painted signage, rewired original fixtures to hang above the booths and even went so far as to lower the ceiling with acoustic ceiling tiles—an unconventional decision for the studio—to create another nod to the original Shady Grove.
That said, Lewis envisioned A Little Shady as an evolution that “feels updated and interesting and has its own curiosities.” While they chose a warm color palette that plays off the original, for example, a richer mix of textures and materials makes the new space more layered and intentionally curated.
Three personalities
Instead of giving A Little Shady its own personality, Lewis decided to give it three. Walk in and look left to find what she calls the best friend’s basement, inspired by the kind of place you may have spent hours playing Atari back in the day. Here, there’s a lounge area for lingering long after the bill has been paid, shag carpet that couldn’t possibly feel more 1970s and colored glass that bathes the room in green, red and orange when the sun sets.
Next up is “Mom’s kitchen,” which purposefully resembles an old-school diner with its chrome-edged tables, checkered floor and café curtains. The pièce de résistance, however, is the wallpaper. Lewis’s team found what she says were the last three rolls in the world on Etsy and snapped them up. “Then, we had them scanned and made into a commercial vinyl, which is restaurant-grade,” the designer explains. “But it is an original print from the 1970s, so it feels very, very authentic.”
The outside patio is the last stop on the tour, named the “cool camp counselor” because it’s “where everybody wants to be.” Lewis wanted it to feel campy, with Shady Grove’s original Airstream helping set the scene.
Design on a dime
For a restaurant of this size, Lewis says her team was working with a tight budget. “As the designer, you have to dream big and then sometimes bring yourself back to reality,” she reflects. “We definitely did that, but I don’t feel that anything was overly compromised.”
If anything, the limited budget inspired some of Lewis’s most memorable design decisions, including the shag carpet: “Those are just rugs that we stapled to the wall—it instantly gave us cool vibes, and it was a really low-budget thing to do.”
The vinyl composition tile was another win, adding durability and color without the hefty price tag. Laid in a retro checkerboard pattern, the flooring is proof that a budget-friendly compromise doesn’t have to look like one. The same goes for the colored windows, which they initially envisioned as stained glass before the cost prompted a pivot to acrylic panels with colored film.
Lewis’s favorite element is the orange FLOR carpet tiles in the lounge, which they’d previously used in a Flatland Cavalry music video and had been storing ever since, waiting for the right project to give them a permanent home. When Lewis mentioned this to Rusty, they realized it was meant to be: The band had previously played during KGSR’s “Unplugged at the Grove” Thursday night concert series at Shady Grove.
Right at home
Everyone involved in the A Little Shady launch is well aware that they have a tough act to follow. After all, reimagining a place people already know and love leaves little room for error: Change too much and you lose the magic; change too little and the new restaurant has no identity own. “What people are saying is that when you walk in, it absolutely feels like the old Shady Grove,” Lewis says. For a restaurant designed to celebrate a beloved Austin institution, there may be no better compliment.
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