Hey, Round Rock! 👋 Halloween falls on a Saturday this year, and downtown is starting a day early: Hometown Halloween fills East Main Street Friday from 3 to 7pm with trick-or-treating, face painting, and a kiddie train. The Pumpkin Festival has its last two days this weekend, and on Saturday morning the farmers market goes spooky.
Plus: espresso martinis in a 1930s house downtown, a new stretch of Wyoming Springs Drive crosses Brushy Creek, a Forest Creek–area home whose neighborhood owns 14 acres along the creek — and the strangest date carved in Old Round Rock Cemetery. Let's dig in.
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🎃 Halloween Gets a Head Start Friday
Halloween is Saturday, but downtown celebrates Friday afternoon, and the Pumpkin Festival goes out the same weekend.
Hometown Halloween · Friday, Oct 30, 3–7pm · Downtown, 221 E Main St
Downtown businesses hand out candy, and part of East Main Street closes to cars for the afternoon. Raphina Austin leads live music and trivia in Prete Plaza, and there's face painting, balloon twisting, and a kiddie train. It's free and costumes are encouraged. Park free in the City Hall or library garages.
Round Rock Pumpkin Festival, Final Weekend · Friday–Saturday, Oct 30–31, 10am–7pm · Old Settlers Park
Saturday is the last day of the season. Teachers, military and first responders with ID, anyone 65+, and kids 2 and under get in free; check the festival site for everyone else's admission.
Spooky Farmers Market · Saturday, Oct 31, 10am–2pm · Round Rock Farmers Market, Rock Creek Center, 2111 N I-35
Kids trick-or-treat at the vendor booths, and anyone in costume picks a numbered paper pumpkin for a prize. There's a Pet & Me costume contest (leashes on), a "Witch's Shopping List" stamp hunt that needs no purchase, and a vote for the best-decorated booth.
🔥 Food Spotlight: Purely Provisions
In 2020, Round Rock residents Cory and Lisa Shaw bought a cream-colored 1930s house on West Main, tucked behind Living Waters Fly Fishing about a block from the old water tower. With partners Kyle Walker and Angie Zuniga, they turned it into Purely Provisions, which opened in June 2025. It started as a coffee shop idea and grew into a place for coffee in the morning and espresso martinis and margaritas at night. "I think Purely was built upon community," Zuniga told Community Impact.
The kitchen is upfront about how it cooks: no seed oils, and anything fried goes into beef tallow. Greens come from TrueHarvest farm in Belton and chicken from Redbird Farms. On the fall menu: an Autumn Flatbread with prosciutto, fresh pear, goat cheese, and house hot honey ($18); whipped ricotta and fig toast on Round Rock Sourdough ($12.50); and the Purely Burger, a smashed Black Angus patty with peach aioli and bourbon bacon jam ($14.50). Breakfast, chilaquiles included, is served until 3pm.
Take your plate out to the backyard patio. As Walker put it, "There's always a hello and always a goodbye."
Open Mon 8am–2pm, Tue–Thu 8am–9pm, Fri–Sat 8am–11pm, Sun 10am–2pm.
📍 212 W Main St
See the menu →
💸 Happy Hour All Day Monday
Just one this week, but it covers a whole day.
URBAN Eat.Drink
All-day happy hour — Mondays, 11am–10pm — and happy hour runs 3–6pm every other day of the week, Sunday included. The restaurant doesn't post what's discounted, so ask when you sit down. It's open 11am–10pm on Halloween, and costumes are welcome.
📍 110 S Harris St · See the specials →
🗓 Events This Week & Just Ahead
Two trunk-or-treats, lunchtime music downtown, a costume storytime, and Lix Box at Music on Main.
Texas State Round Rock Trunk-or-Treat
🗓 Thursday, Oct 29, starts 5:30pm
📍 Texas State University Round Rock, 1555 University Blvd
A free, family-friendly trunk-or-treat on campus, two days before Halloween.
St. Richard's Trunk or Treat
🗓 Friday, Oct 30, 6–8pm
📍 St. Richard's front parking lot and pumpkin patch, 1420 E Palm Valley Blvd
Free trunk-or-treating that runs until 8 or until the candy runs out, whichever comes first. It starts as Hometown Halloween winds down, so you can do both.
Halloween Family Storytime
🗓 Saturday, Oct 31, 11am
📍 Round Rock Public Library, 200 E Liberty Ave, 2nd-floor Youth Program Space
A free storytime for ages 18 months to 6. Costumes are welcome.
Music on Main: Lix Box
🗓 Wednesday, Nov 4, 7–9pm
📍 Prete Main Street Plaza, 221 E Main St
The free fall concert series keeps going. Bring a chair or a blanket; parking downtown is free.
Just ahead: Saturday, Nov 7 is a big one at Old Settlers Park. The Palm House reopens from 10am to noon at the Old Settlers Association grounds, 3300 Palm Valley Blvd, with a ribbon cutting and tours; it's free. That afternoon, the Día de los Muertos Festival & Parade runs 3–10pm at Lakeview Pavilion, with folklórico, live music, vendors, and kids' crafts; the procession steps off at 5pm. Downtown, Market Days fills Prete Plaza with local vendors, 9am–4pm.
📰 Community News & Headlines
Good things happening around town this week:
Wyoming Springs Drive now crosses Brushy Creek — A new stretch of Wyoming Springs Drive, about half a mile long, opened Oct. 22 between Creek Bend Boulevard and East Old Settlers Boulevard on the west side. The four-lane divided road bridges Brushy Creek and Hairy Man Road, with a shared-use path, sidewalks on both sides, and connections to the Brushy Creek Regional Trail. Next up is an extension north to RM 1431, targeted for early 2029. Read more…
Café du Bliss opens on Round Rock Avenue — Suzi and Michael Yi's Korean-style café opened Oct. 22 at 1312 Round Rock Ave., in the former Fatbee Cafe space. It's their second shop, after the original at the Arboretum in Austin. Look for corn, sweet potato, and black sesame lattes, croffles, and fish-shaped taiyaki. Read more…
PulseForge plans 60 new high-paying jobs — The Round Rock company, which makes semiconductor manufacturing equipment, has about 50 employees in a 56,000-square-foot facility at 400 Parker Drive. It plans at least $20 million in new investment and 60 new jobs with average starting salaries of at least $100,000: 20 by the end of 2029 and 40 more by the end of 2031. Read more…
Texas Baptist Children's Home welcomes a new president — Jeff Jones, who held leadership roles at Dallas-based Buckner International, started Oct. 26. He succeeds Debbie Rippstein Bond, who retired after more than 37 years with the Round Rock nonprofit. It runs cottage housing for mothers and children, housing for up to 20 young adults who have aged out of foster care, and a drop-in center with free GED classes and a food pantry. Read more…
Ship your holiday packages to the police station, free — From Nov. 9 to Dec. 18, Round Rock residents can send deliveries to [Your Name], ATTN: Operation Front Porch, Round Rock Police Department, 2701 N. Mays St., Round Rock, TX 78665. Pick them up within three days: Mon/Wed/Fri 8am–5pm or Tue/Thu 8am–7pm (no pickup Nov. 26–29). Bring a government ID and proof of order, and keep packages under 50 pounds. Read more…
🏡 Real Estate Corner
Thinking about buying, selling, or simply curious what homes are selling for around town? Our Real Estate Corner highlights notable local listings, market insights, and trends shaping the Round Rock housing market.
6 Wooded Way, Round Rock 78664
$650,000 · 2.5 bath · 2,636 sqft · 0.28 acre
The selling point here is out back. The house sits on a quiet cul-de-sac in Oak Bluff Estates with private green space behind it, and the neighborhood owns 14 acres of private land with access to Brushy Creek; the listing suggests packing your fishing poles. An elevated deck off the living room looks over the large backyard, where a pergola covers an outdoor kitchen, and there's still room for a pool. Built in 1997, the house has had both HVAC units replaced, a new roof in 2021, and a primary bath remodeled in 2019 with a walk-in shower, marble accents, and a freestanding tub. Oak Bluff Estates sits next to Forest Creek Golf Course, and HOA dues are $31 a month.
See the listing →
🪨 Poll of the Week
Spooky-season trivia: the state historical marker at Old Round Rock Cemetery, off Sam Bass Road, calls out one tombstone as "unusual." What's strange about it?
That's a wrap for this week. If you make it to Hometown Halloween on Friday, hit reply and tell us the best costume you saw. And if you've been to Purely, tell us what you ordered. Happy Halloween! 👋
-Doing Round Rock Team
🪨 Trivia answer: It's dated February 30, 1870! The stone marks the grave of Mary Ann Lavender, and the 1983 state historical marker at Old Round Rock Cemetery singles it out as unusual. The cemetery dates to the early 1850s; its oldest legible tombstone, for 11-year-old Angeline Scott, bears the year 1851. Today it holds more than 2,000 graves, including the outlaw Sam Bass's, and part of the grounds was a burial place for enslaved people and freedmen. Read more →
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