On A Roll

New sushi bar by Rocco's team joins the neighborhood on Rainey Street

Bluefin tuna tartare and yellowtail tiradito are among the dishes Kinsho will offer on Rainey Street.

Photo courtesy of Kinsho

Rainey Street is poised to get its first dedicated sushi restaurant this spring. Kinsho, a neighborhood sushi bar from the team behind Rocco’s Neighborhood Joint, is expected to open in March, bringing a neighborhood sushi counter experience to the bustling entertainment district. Brand-new information on the menu brings the opening even closer.

The restaurant will open at 51 Rainey St., Ste. 140A, in the ground-floor retail space beneath SkyHouse Austin. The location previously housed Standard Proof Whiskey Co., a whiskey bar that closed in December 2025.

Kinsho comes from Austin restaurateurs Nick Ford and Wade McElroy, who opened Rocco's, an Italian restaurant on North Loop, in September 2025. The recent predecessor is already popular and becoming known for its house-made pastas and neighborhood-focused atmosphere. With Kinsho, the team is applying a similar philosophy to sushi by creating a place designed for regular visits while still offering a chef-driven dining experience.

Rainey Street is best known for its cocktail bars and nightlife, with only a handful of venues operating as full-service restaurants, including Emmer & Rye, Banger’s Sausage House & Beer Garden, and Geraldine’s at the Hotel Van Zandt. Kinsho will add another dining-focused option to the district, centering its menu on sushi and small plates rather than typical bar fare.

House-made agedashi tofu with oyster mushrooms and leek dashi highlight Kinsho’s focus on in-house ingredients and traditional Japanese techniques.Photo courtesy of Kinsho

Among other seating, the space will feature an 18-seat sushi counter where diners can order à la carte dishes from Chef Victor Gonzalez, whose background includes time at Austin sushi restaurants Uchiko and Lucky Robot.

The menu will highlight seasonal fish and carefully finished nigiri, plus sashimi and maki (a star ingredient on rice, on its own, and in a roll with seaweed, respectively), along with hot dishes and kushi-yaki skewers from the grill. Many components will be made in house, including tofu, sauces, and pickled accompaniments.

Sushi selections will feature fish such as bluefin tuna, hamachi (yellowtail), hirame (flounder), and kanpachi (amberjack), with some pieces finished with ingredients like koji chimichurri, beer glaze, or salsa criolla. More complex highlights include house-made agedashi tofu served with oyster mushrooms and leek dashi, and bluefin tuna tartare with kimchi, scallions, sesame, and a nori chip.

The roll section will include both familiar options and signature combinations, including a yellowtail roll with hamachi, avocado, cucumber, cilantro, and chili ponzu. From the grill, diners can order kushi-yaki skewers such as beef with koji chimichurri and chicken with miso-leek purée.

The beverage program will feature Japanese-inspired cocktails alongside sake, beer, and wine. Drinks include a roasted tea old fashioned made with hojicha and Japanese whisky, and a miso honey sour with white miso, ginger, and lemon.

Nigiri Options Nigiri will be on the a la carte menu at Kinsho. (From left to right: akami, kanpachi, hamachi)Photo courtesy of Kinsho

“Rainey continues to be one of the most dynamic areas of Austin,” said McElroy in a press release. McElroy also co-owns Love Supreme and Teddy’s Cocktail Bar in Austin, and Ichijiku Sushi in Los Angeles and Houston. “Kinsho is meant to be a true neighborhood sushi bar, easy for Rainey residents to enjoy often, and inviting to Austinites from all over the city.”

Update: This story has been updated to reflect tweaks to the service style at Kinsho.

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Spain on South First

Lenoir's unique next-door sister bar ready to debut in South Austin

Photo by Chad Wadsworth

The husband-and-wife team, Todd Duplechan and Jessica Maher, behind Lenoir and now Boni's.

On Friday, March 6, the husband-and-wife team behind one of Austin’s most beloved neighborhood restaurants will debut a new bar just steps away from their dining room. Todd Duplechan and Jessica Maher, owners of Michelin-recommended Lenoir, are opening Boni’s Bar Next Door at 1805 South 1st St., transforming a 1934 bungalow on the same property into what they describe as a relaxed, Spanish-leaning cocktail bar for the Bouldin Creek neighborhood.

Inspired by Maher’s Spanish great-grandfather, Bonifacio — known as Boni — the new concept is both personal and practical. The name nods to Boni’s colorful life: He immigrated from Spain to Argentina before settling in New Jersey, worked as a rum runner during Prohibition, made wine, played music, and grew his own food — the sort of craftsmanship that resonates deeply with the couple’s farm-driven ethos.

According to Maher, Boni’s is the first and only dedicated cocktail bar on South First Street, and its setting reinforces the sense of history. The circa-1934 bungalow-style building was originally hand-built from reused materials. Rather than overhaul it, Duplechan has led the renovation himself, preserving original windows and wood floors while layering in vintage bar furniture, black-and-white family photos of Boni, and even Duplechan’s aunt’s piano. The result, Maher says, is meant to feel timeless, but welcoming.

“It’s meant to be a comfortable neighborhood bar,” she explains. “And I think that it has its own kind of unique feeling about it.”

Warm wood covers the interior of Boni's Bar Next Door. Photo by Chad Wadsworth

That feeling is intentionally different from Lenoir’s cozy, "feminine-leaning" dining room next door.

“Boni’s is meant to be more casual, more welcoming to more people,” Maher says. “It doesn’t have to be a special occasion, necessarily, to pop in and get a drink.” Guests can swing by after work, grab an espresso after dinner at Lenoir, or settle in to watch a game on the bar’s cleverly framed flat-screen TV, designed to look old-fashioned.

“We’re building the kind of place that we want to be in," Maher says.

The cocktail menu leans Spanish but remains rooted in classics, with drinks priced between $12 and $15. Expect goblets of ginitónica, a seasonal Boni’s margarita, a carajillo with rotating spirits, a media combinación (gin and sweet vermouth), papa doble (daiquiri variation), an old fashioned with Spanish brandy and rye whiskey, and sorbete de Cava (lemon sorbet with sparkling Spanish wine). The bar will also pour curated natural Spanish wines, draft beer, and cider.

On the food side, Boni’s offers a tapas-style menu designed for snacking rather than full-on dining.

“It’s just meant to be, you’re snacking and having cocktails," Maher says, but adds with a laugh, "We're professional food service people...so the food is probably better than it needs to be."

Standouts include spiced pork rinds, a pickle bowl, oysters, soft shell crawfish chips, stewed pork meatballs, preserved whitefish with capers and lemon, shrimp and garlic with glass bread — a crunchy Catalan hallmark — and a chocolate chip cookie with dark and white chocolate and candied orange.

As South Austin continues to evolve, Maher and Duplechan see Boni’s and Lenoir as a small anchor of Old Austin charm. Their hope is to create a little farm-to-table village tucked into the neighborhood; a place where you can pop in, pop out, and feel at home.

Boni’s Bar Next Door will be open daily from 3 pm to midnight, closed Tuesdays. Free valet will be available Thursday through Saturday.

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