{"id":365274,"date":"2026-07-08T12:15:35","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T12:15:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/365274\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T12:15:35","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T12:15:35","slug":"juliet-italian-kitchen-brings-casual-dining-to-austinites-across-the-city-northwest-austin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/365274\/","title":{"rendered":"Juliet Italian Kitchen brings casual dining to Austinites across the city | Northwest Austin"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.juliet-austin.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Juliet Italian Kitchen<\/a> is serving up comfort cuisine with options for everyone. The company has helped shape the Austin dining scene for over a decade, expanding its reach from Barton Springs Road to The Arboretum in Northwest Austin.<\/p>\n<p>The background<\/p>\n<p>Husband-and-wife duo Donna and Dan Wilkins are long-time entrepreneurs. The couple are both engineers and previously owned separate tech-based businesses. When the time came for a new business venture, Dan Wilkins discovered a vacant building on Barton Springs Road that would later become the first Juliet Italian Kitchen,<a href=\"https:\/\/communityimpact.com\/south-central-austin\/dining\/juliet-italian-kitchen-announces-changes-celebrates-10-years-of-dining\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> launching in July 2015. <\/a><\/p>\n<p>Though the couple didn\u2019t have hospitality experience, they were excited to translate their engineering mindsets to a new business model\u2014looking at efficiency and scalability through Italian food.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe love to be a restaurant guest and have a great experience, and we want to be able to bring that to as many people as possible,\u201d Donna Wilkins said.<\/p>\n<p>Donna and Dan Wilkins<a href=\"https:\/\/communityimpact.com\/northwest-austin\/dining\/juliet-italian-kitchen-to-open-arboretum-location-and-7-other-dining-updates-in-northwest-austin\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> expanded the brand in 2020<\/a> to open another restaurant at <a href=\"https:\/\/thearboretum.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Arboretum<\/a>, bringing familiar favorites closer to customers.<\/p>\n<p>On the menu<\/p>\n<p>The menu starts with a list of antipasti, including meatballs, caprese bruschetta and black truffle arancini. Juliet Italian Kitchen also has a selection of soups and salads, including a classic Caesar or caprese. Alongside starters are a range of hand-tossed pizzas, house-made pastas and entrees.<\/p>\n<p>Fan favorites include the chicken parmigiana with breaded chicken breast, mozzarella, parmesan, basil, marinara and spaghetti. Other best-sellers are the lasagna and chicken piccata, which is prepared with chicken scallopine in a white wine caper sauce over sauteed spinach.<\/p>\n<p>When compiling the menu, the owners wanted to make sure there was something for everyone, including options for children and people with dietary restrictions. In addition to variety in flavor, the menu also features a range of prices, Donna Wilkins said. Juliet Italian Kitchen also serves brunch on the weekends and a daily happy hour from 3-6 p.m.<\/p>\n<p>Why it matters<\/p>\n<p>For the ownership team, their favorite part about the restaurant is getting to be part of so many celebrations and joyful experiences alongside their customers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe&#8217;ve got several groups of people\u2014one group I can think of, they come in every month to the Arboretum. Some of them live in Cedar Park or north, some of them live in Central Austin. They say it&#8217;s the perfect meeting place.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s in a name <\/p>\n<p>Donna Wilkins has spent over a decade answering the question, \u201cwho\u2019s Juliet?\u201d The name Juliet isn\u2019t native to the restaurant\u2019s ownership; it comes from the previous tenant at the Barton Springs location. Before Dan and Donna Wilkins took over the space, it was occupied by a restaurant called Romeo\u2019s Italian Grill and Bar. The pair jokingly called their new venture \u201cJuliet\u2019s,\u201d as an homage to Romeo\u2019s\u2014a name that stuck.<\/p>\n<p>Before you go<\/p>\n<p>Last fall, the brand converted its Georgetown location into <a href=\"https:\/\/communityimpact.com\/georgetown\/business\/juliet-italian-kitchen-in-georgetown-to-transition-to-event-venue\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Juliet Social,<\/a> a private event space and Italian cafe. After the recent change, Donna Wilkins said she doesn\u2019t anticipate any additional expansions over the next year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere&#8217;s a number of things operationally [and] internally that we&#8217;re working on,\u201d Donna Wilkins said. \u201cWith the focus on hospitality, we&#8217;re working with our teams to make sure that we&#8217;re giving our guests the best experience.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Juliet Italian Kitchen is serving up comfort cuisine with options for everyone. The company has helped shape the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":365275,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[126777,132,134,133,4174,1462,1551,1599,129471,5468,129470,25065,7048,75],"class_list":["post-365274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-arboretum","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-barton-springs","tag-brunch","tag-feature","tag-happy-hour","tag-house-made","tag-italian-food","tag-juliet-italian-kitchen","tag-pasta","tag-pizza","tag-wine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365274\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}