Ristorante Mulino in Southlake is about to give its outdoor diners a permanent escape from the elements. The Italian restaurant on Davis Boulevard plans to enclose its existing 522-square-foot patio with a roof, walls, large windows and air conditioning, turning an open-air seating area into a year-round dining room.
The Southlake City Council approved the project on Oct. 6, according to Community Impact Newspaper, clearing the way for construction to begin. Besi Iseberi, who co-owns the restaurant with his brother, told the outlet the renovations will add space to accommodate customers more comfortably.
The patio was not part of the restaurant’s original approved site plan. At its Sept. 15 meeting, the council considered the proposal as the first reading of a zoning-change and site-plan ordinance for the property, which is in Southlake’s S-P-1 Detailed Site Plan District; city staff described the request as converting the existing outdoor patio into a permanently enclosed part of the building. The council meeting record captures that review.
Construction on the patio enclosure is expected to start in November and wrap up by late December or early January 2027, per the same report. Once finished, the space will give the restaurant a climate-controlled room that is sheltered from rain, wind and the summer heat that can make open patios a tough sell for much of the year in North Texas.
The enclosure would add indoor seating through a long stretch of North Texas heat: Dallas-Fort Worth’s 1991-2020 climate normals put the average high at 95.6 degrees in July and 95.8 degrees in August. The same normals show an average of 20.2 days a year when temperatures reach 100 degrees. Those seasonal conditions help explain the practical appeal of a patio that can remain in use without relying on mild weather. National Weather Service climate normals provide the local benchmarks.
Nearly a Decade on Davis Boulevard
Ristorante Mulino first opened in Southlake in May 2017, and Iseberi and his brother have worked there since it opened nearly 10 years ago, the restaurant's reporting shows. Russ and Lee Tuman bought the restaurant in March 2018, according to an earlier communityimpact.com profile of the business. The restaurant sits at 1125 Davis Blvd., Ste. 450, in Southlake.
The menu has long centered on wood-fired pizza, lasagna, pastas, salads and soups, with lunch and dinner service built around housemade Italian classics. A 2018 communityimpact.com feature on the restaurant described a similar lineup of seafood, pasta, soups, salads and Neapolitan pizzas cooked in a wood-fired pizza oven, with lunch served Tuesday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
An Oven Imported From Italy
The restaurant's signature pizzas come out of a wood-fired brick oven imported from Italy, and the kitchen also imports its flour and yeast from Italy. Iseberi said the imported oven, flour and yeast help create an authentic Italian taste, a detail that has defined the restaurant's identity since it first opened.
For now, the enclosed patio remains a construction project rather than a finished space, with the timeline pointing to a late 2026 or early 2027 opening. Diners hoping to use the new indoor-outdoor room will need to wait for the roof, walls and air conditioning to go in before Ristorante Mulino can offer that extra, weather-proof seating.
