🍣 Uni Sushi Is Coming Back, and Grogan's Mill Is Almost Full

🥕 The Market That Kept Grogan's Mill Alive Is Still There Every Saturday

🏊 Two Township Lifeguards Are Headed to the State Competition

🩺 Magnolia Gets Its Own Health Center, the Sixth in the System

🧬 The Country's Largest Vein Care Network Just Picked The Woodlands

Uni Sushi is coming back to The Woodlands. Howard Hughes Communities announced on June 29 that the restaurant will return at Grogan's Mill Village Center, taking roughly 3,500 square feet at 7 Switchbud Place, Suite 190, with indoor seating for 230 to 250 guests and a covered patio. It is scheduled to open in 2027, with original owners Angel Barragan and Rosie Izaguirre behind it.

The gap opened in February, when the restaurant closed at Market Street. The owners called it a long and successful run but said their story was not over, and that they were already preparing to reopen nearby.

What made it worth reopening was never the menu. Barragan describes a place stitched into local life, where first dates became engagements and anniversaries, and where students home from college made it the first stop of the break and the last before leaving. He says customers would call from the airport in Mexico before their flight just to book a table. "We're a staple for The Woodlands for 20 years," he said, adding that many familiar faces will be back behind the sushi bar.

The address is the other half of the story. Grogan's Mill opened in 1974 as the first shopping center in The Woodlands, originally called The Wharf. By the time Howard Hughes bought the retail piece in 2023 it had been hollowed out by years of disinvestment and vacancy, and the Randalls that anchored it had been gone since 2020.

About ten months of work later, a June 2025 ribbon cutting reopened some 31,000 square feet of retail. The Kevin Brady Library and Community Center opened on Buckthorne Place that September, built through a $16.5 million partnership between Montgomery County and Howard Hughes. This spring the Urban Land Institute Houston named the project its 2026 Development of Distinction for historical redevelopment. Uni Sushi and the Sichuan restaurant Cooking Girl are filling in what is left.

Why it matters: the first shopping center George Mitchell ever built here spent years as the one people drove past, and it is finishing a turnaround that took three years and a county library to pull off.

Source/Credits: Woodlands Online · Community Impact · PaperCity · Hello Woodlands

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🌡️ High 95°F · Low 74°F
💧 Humidity 67% · 💨 Wind SW 5 mph · 🌧️ Rain chance 19%
☀️ UV Index Extreme · 🌅 Sunrise 6:37 AM · 🌇 Sunset 8:19 PM

Extreme UV and 95 degrees, so sunscreen and water if you're headed out.

Source: The Weather Channel

While the village center sat half empty, one thing never stopped. The Woodlands Farmers Market has been setting up at 7 Switchbud Place every Saturday from 9 a.m. to noon, the same address where Uni Sushi will open in 2027.

A recent Saturday layout listed close to 80 vendors across produce, farm-fresh meat, prepared foods, sweet treats, beverages, health and beauty, pet supplies, garden plants and artisan goods, plus a rotating food truck and live music while you shop. Recent stalls included Atkinson Farm eggs, Texas Peaches, TKF Mushrooms, Granny's Tamales, Marchese Sausage and Carolina Doughnut Co.

The market is sponsored by the Grogan's Mill Village Association, and all profits go back into the community through scholarships, school donations and community involvement. Howard Hughes and the local UPS Store are listed among its supporters.

Why it matters: the village center spent years being written off, and every Saturday morning a stretch of that parking lot quietly argued otherwise.

Source/Credits: The Woodlands Farmers Market

Two Woodlands Township lifeguards have earned a place at the Texas Public Pool Council State Lifeguard Competition after finishing among the top three at the regional round. They compete August 3 at Adamson Lagoon in College Station against lifeguards from across Texas.

The Township shared the news in its monthly aquatics newsletter and did not release the two guards' names.

Why it matters: the teenagers watching the shallow end at your neighborhood pool this summer turn out to be among the best in the state at it.

Source/Credits: The Woodlands Township

Lone Star Family Health Center has opened a sixth clinic in Magnolia, expanding primary medical and dental care in one of Montgomery County's fastest-growing communities. It sits at 18230 FM 1488, Suite 203, in the Landmark Building, and is accepting patients now.

The nonprofit is a federally qualified health center headquartered in Conroe, founded in 2002, with other clinics in Willis, Spring, Grangerland and Huntsville. Across its locations it offers family medicine, OB-GYN, dental, behavioral health, an in-house pharmacy, nutrition, lab and X-rays, and it reports serving more than 30,000 patients across about 95,000 visits a year.

The Magnolia office covers primary medical and dental care for all ages, staffed by family nurse practitioner Georjene Parker with dental providers Alissa Medina and Andrea St. Clair. CEO Karen Harwell said the opening brings comprehensive services closer to home as Magnolia keeps growing.

Why it matters: Magnolia has been adding rooftops faster than it adds doctors, and this is one of the few places a family can get a checkup and a cleaning without leaving town.

Source/Credits: Lone Star Family Health Center

Center for Vein Restoration has opened a clinic in The Woodlands, adding to what it describes as the largest physician-led vein care network in the country. The new location pushes the organization past 130 clinics across 23 states.

The Woodlands clinic is led by Dr. H. Andrew Hansen II, a triple board-certified vascular specialist with more than 40 years of surgical experience and over 15,000 cardiovascular, thoracic and vascular procedures behind him. He earned his zoology degree at Texas A&M before attending Texas Tech University School of Medicine.

The organization treats venous and lymphatic conditions including varicose veins, spider veins, deep vein thrombosis and chronic venous insufficiency, and reports more than 700,000 patient interactions a year across 80-plus board-certified physicians.

Why it matters: vein disease is the kind of thing people put off because the specialist was always an hour away, and now the specialist is here.

Source/Credits: Center for Vein Restoration · Woodlands Online

🦆 Duck Dash registration closes tomorrow — The Ultimate Duck Dash runs Saturday, August 8 from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. at the Rob Fleming Aquatic Center, where you decorate a provided rubber duck and cheer it down the slide and along the lazy river before the pool opens to the public. Registration closes Monday, July 27. Details from The Woodlands Parks

🎢 Creekwood Pool has a new zipline — The Township has installed an AquaZip at Creekwood Pool on S. Panther Creek Drive, open to experienced swimmers, with riders required to let go of the rope at the end of the frame. More from The Woodlands Parks

🏊 Pool season does not end August 11 — The post-season schedule runs August 12 through Labor Day, with nine pools open weekends and Shadowbend open weekdays except Fridays. Schedule from The Woodlands Parks

🏛️ Free curb paint kits are still available from the Township — Residents can request a kit with a brush, stencil and reflective paint to put their house number on the curb, which is the difference between a deputy or a fire crew finding you on the first pass or the third. Request one from The Woodlands Township

🎓 Memorial Hermann says the back-to-school reset should start now — Sleep schedules, checkups and routines are easier to fix a few weeks out than the night before the first bell. Read more in Hello Woodlands

🗓️ Making Your First Photo Book | Precision Camera & Video, Shenandoah | More info

🗓️ National Scotch Day | The Refuge Steakhouse & Bourbon Bar, 8540 Creekside Forest Dr | 4-10 p.m. | More info

🗓️ Tropical Beach Paint Party | Sawyer Park Icehouse, 314 Pruitt Rd, Spring | More info

🗓️ Casual Carats Trunk Show | Robichau's Jewelry, Panther Creek | 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. | More info

🗓️ Workshop Wednesday: Pencil & Apple Bath Bomb | Magnolia Ritual, 6318 FM 1488, Magnolia | More info

🗓️ Rock the Row | Hughes Landing, 1900 Hughes Landing Blvd | 7-9 p.m. | Free | More info

🗓️ Community Blood Drive | Houston Methodist The Woodlands Hospital | More info

🗓️ National Youth Theater presents Newsies | Opens July 31, runs through August 9 | More info

🗓️ The Pussycat Dolls, PCD FOREVER Tour | The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion | 7 p.m. | More info

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The original Grogan-Cochran purchase was only the beginning. Assembling the land that became The Woodlands took more than 300 additional separate transactions, stitched together parcel by parcel over years.

"As big as all hell and half of Texas." Translation: enormous.

The grocery store is the only place where you walk past a hundred strangers and quietly form an opinion about every single one of their carts.

I'm afraid for the calendar.
Its days are numbered.