Nishi Opens Oct. 15 in South Austin. Chistâ's Liquor Filings Are Still Pending.

Nishi, the first brick-and-mortar restaurant from the Little Nishi hand-roll trailer, opens Thursday, Oct. 15 at 2000 Southern Oaks Drive in South Austin, according to the restaurant's own website and the Austin American-Statesman. Across town, Chistâ, a two-story Persian restaurant on Rainey Street, has no opening date yet. Both show up in the state's pending liquor-license list that ATX Things tracks, and that list is why this piece exists.

Illustration: AI-generated, not a photo of Nishi's food or dining room.

When does Nishi open, and where is it?

Thursday, Oct. 15, at 2000 Southern Oaks Dr., Austin, TX 78745, just off Menchaca Road. Little Nishi's website says "Opening October 15th 2026" and gives that address. The Statesman's Matthew Odam reported the same date and location on Aug. 19, and a recent Little Nishi Instagram post said the team was "less than two weeks away" with Oct. 15 as the first day of business.

Chef Joel Taylor started Little Nishi as a food truck in September 2023 on South First Street, per the Statesman. It later moved to South Congress and added an East Austin location in 2024. Community Impact reported that the space is a former vegan restaurant that closed Aug. 2; the Statesman names a different previous tenant, so we are not naming one.

We have not been, and the restaurant has not published its hours that we could find. Google lists the address as operational, which tells you the listing exists, not that the doors are open. Follow @nishi.atx for hours before you go.

What will Nishi serve?

Expect the trailer's menu to travel, and expect it to grow. Community Impact describes the current menu as hand rolls, sashimi and small plates: seaweed salad, roasted chili edamame, miso soup, hamachi with toasted sesame, and a spicy tuna hand roll with yellowfin, avocado, honey and seasoned chili puree. The Statesman lists soft-shell tempura, spicy scallop temaki, chicken karaage, more than a dozen hand rolls and a half dozen sashimi, and guesses at "at least an equal number" of dishes at the restaurant. That is a guess. The restaurant has not published an opening menu that we found.

What do the liquor filings say about Nishi?

Our TABC tracker shows two pending applications for Nishi at 2000 Southern Oaks Dr.:

Source: Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission pending applications, tracked on our Coming Soon page, snapshot of Oct. 5, 2026.

What that means: a beer-and-wine permit plus a food-and-beverage certificate is the filing pattern you see before a restaurant that intends to serve beer and wine. It does not mean beer and wine on opening day. Approval status after Oct. 5 is something we could not check. If a drink is why you're going, ask the restaurant.

What is Chistâ, and has it opened?

Not as far as we can tell. Chistâ's own site says "Coming Soon" and lists 44 East Ave., Unit 100, 78701, near the south end of Rainey Street. Austin Food Magazine says it is "opening this fall" and describes a two-story room designed by Austin's CoExist Studio, overlooking Lady Bird Lake, with a dog-friendly first-floor patio.

The people: Executive Chef Mojdeh Eghbal, formerly of Noush, with partners Morteza Tohidi, Omid Kalantari and Michael Santoro, consulting chef and co-owner Paul Qui, and beverage director Bill Norris, per Austin Food Magazine. The Austin Business Journal reported on Sept. 28 that Eghbal moved from Los Angeles to lead the kitchen. The Infatuation, which lists Chistâ in its fall openings guide, notes it follows Roya as the second recent Persian restaurant in Austin.

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"I'm not changing Persian food; I'm presenting it to a new audience through a fresh lens." Chef Mojdeh Eghbal, to Austin Food Magazine

Austin Food Magazine's menu preview includes grilled peach labneh, a crispy falafel crust over hummus, saffron tahdig, ghalieh mahi (a stew from Iran's southern coast), and charcoal-grilled kabobs and lamb racks. It also lists planned hours: Sunday to Thursday 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., Friday and Saturday 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Those are planned hours from a preview, not posted hours.

Illustration: AI-generated scene, not Chistâ's food or its Rainey Street dining room.

What do the liquor filings say about Chistâ?

Three applications at 44 East Ave., Suite 100:

Source: Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission pending applications, snapshot of Oct. 5, 2026.

Austin Food Magazine says the restaurant will have cocktails, zero-proof drinks and wines. A mixed beverage permit is the license for cocktails, so the filing fits the plan. It does not tell you the opening date, and we are not going to guess one. The mixed beverage application had been in review for about four weeks as of Oct. 5.

What should you do with this?

• Nishi: Put Thursday, Oct. 15 on the calendar and check @nishi.atx the day before for hours. We have not seen a reservation policy for Nishi.
• Chistâ: Don't plan around a date. Watch @chistaatx and our Coming Soon page, which is refreshed weekly from state records.
• More Rainey Street news: we covered another new Rainey restaurant filing in August in A New Restaurant Is Coming to Rainey Street.

For the wider list of fall openings, The Infatuation's Austin fall openings guide (Sept. 22, 2026) is the one we'd start from. It also lists Bad Larry's on East Cesar Chavez and Shola in Govalle. We haven't checked either against state filings.

Frequently asked questions

Is Nishi the same as Little Nishi? Nishi is the new brick-and-mortar from the Little Nishi team, led by chef Joel Taylor. Little Nishi's website says it still has a Teddy's Bar location; Community Impact reported the South Congress trailer would close Oct. 1.

When does Chistâ open? Not announced. Its website says "Coming Soon" and a preview says "fall 2026." Its liquor applications were still pending in our Oct. 5 snapshot.

What is a TABC "pending" application? It is a license application the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission has received and not yet decided. It is a fact about a filing, not a promise about an opening.

How did you check the addresses? Both addresses match the restaurants' own sites and Google Places listings, both flagged as operational listings on Oct. 9, 2026. We did not visit either.