This past Saturday, the Grove City Town Center Bourbon & Spirits Festival filled Park Street with tasting tents and a crowd that didn't seem to be rushing anywhere. Nobody had to. Within an easy walk of that festival are two restaurants that didn't exist five months ago. That's the part of this month's calendar the event flyers don't explain: how much of what's new to eat in Grove City this year landed on the same few blocks of Broadway, and how much of it didn't.
Grove City added restaurants in two very different places in 2026, and the difference says something about how the town actually works right now.
Broadway Got a Southern Diner and a Fried Chicken Spot, Not a New Building
Walk down Broadway from Town Center Park and you'll pass Broadway Standard, a Southern breakfast-and-lunch counter that opened March 30 at 3911 Broadway. It didn't go up on an empty lot. It moved into the former Pontones Music store, a retail space that had nothing to do with food service until owners Myles and Amanda Deschner, operating as Standard Restaurant Group, retrofitted it into a 70-seat dining room with a 40-person patio. The menu leans into chicken and waffles, biscuit flights, fried catfish and fried green tomatoes, and every meal comes with complimentary fritters and a rotating dessert. Deschner spent over a decade managing restaurants and bars on Nashville's Lower Broadway before bringing that experience back to his hometown.
A short walk further is DHC Chicken, a Korean fried chicken concept that opened at 4009 Broadway in April, confirmed on the city's own business updates page. Neither business required new construction. Both took over existing storefronts in a stretch of Broadway that has functioned as Grove City's historic commercial spine for generations, and both are close enough to Town Center Park that a festival crowd doesn't need to find parking twice.
That's the quiet detail worth noticing. Two of this year's most talked-about openings didn't expand the footprint of the town. They filled in space that was already there.
Two Miles Away, the Growth Looks Completely Different
Buckeye Parkway and the London Groveport Road corridor tell a different story. Cava, the fast-casual Mediterranean chain, opened its third central Ohio location at 4120 Buckeye Parkway on June 10, following earlier openings in Hilliard in April and near Polaris in May, as reported by NBC4. It's a shopping-center outparcel, built for drive-up traffic, not a repurposed storefront on a walkable street.
Later this fall, Bojangles will open its fifth Columbus-area location at 2815 London Groveport Road, and this one is a direct swap: the Southern chicken chain is taking over a building that previously housed a KFC, with construction starting in September and an opening targeted for later in the year. It's part of a larger regional push, the same operator already brought Bojangles to Hilliard in 2023, then Heath, Delaware, and a fourth Columbus-area location in Circleville this past February. Chain expansion here follows the highway, not the sidewalk, and it tends to replace one drive-thru with another rather than reviving an old storefront.
Neither pattern is better or worse. But if you've noticed Grove City feeling busier this year without quite placing why, this is likely it. The Broadway corridor is filling in with independent operators reusing existing buildings within walking distance of Town Center Park. The Buckeye Parkway corridor is filling in with chains built for cars. Two different kinds of growth, happening at the same time, a couple of miles apart.
August Is Already Proving the Split
The Bourbon & Spirits Festival on Saturday was the first test. It happened at Town Center Park, the same green space that anchors the Broadway corridor, which means anyone who wanted to follow tasting tents with fried chicken or biscuit flights could do it without driving anywhere.
The rest of the month keeps testing it. Here's what's still ahead, all confirmed on the city's event calendar:
- Wednesday, Aug. 12 – Movies in the Park screens Wicked For Good at Town Center Park, 7 p.m.
- Saturday, Aug. 15 – Back to School Bash at Town Center Park, starting at 9 a.m.
- Sunday, Aug. 16 – Aladdin Shrine Center hosts its Annual Car Show and Chicken & Corn Roast, starting at 11 a.m.
- Saturday, Aug. 22 – Olde Time Fair at Century Village, Fryer Park, noon to 4 p.m.
The first two sit right back in the walkable core, footsteps from Broadway Standard and DHC Chicken. The last two require getting in the car.
As the Standard Restaurant Group put it when it opened the Broadway location, "people are better off for being here," a mission statement the restaurant leans into with complimentary sides and dessert on every plate. It's a small thing, but it fits the larger pattern: the businesses filling in Broadway are betting on people sticking around the neighborhood rather than passing through it.
The Two Trips That Still Require a Car
Not everything worth doing in Grove City this month is on Broadway, and that's fine. The Aladdin Shrine Center's car show and chicken and corn roast on Aug. 16 draws its own regular crowd and isn't trying to be a Town Center event. It's a separate destination with its own following, and it's worth the drive on its own terms.
The bigger trip is Aug. 22, when the Olde Time Fair takes over Century Village at Fryer Park. This one leans fully into Grove City's older history rather than its newer restaurant scene. Visitors can walk through the Orders Road Schoolhouse, the community's original train depot, historic log cabins, a general store, a farm building and museum, and a working blacksmith shop, all part of a self-guided tour through the historic village. The afternoon closes with the Ohio Village Muffins playing a vintage baseball game under 1860s rules, bring your own lawn chair.
Century Village isn't part of the Broadway circuit, and it was never meant to be. It sits closer to the older, agrarian version of Grove City's identity, the version that predates both the new fried chicken spot and the new Mediterranean chain. Visiting it on the same weekend you've eaten at Broadway Standard is a reminder that this town is holding two timelines at once: a historic village preserved almost exactly as it was, and a commercial strip actively being reinvented block by block.
What Carries Into September
The clearest sign that the Broadway revival isn't a one-month blip: the Visit Grove City Pizza Trail launches Aug. 27 and runs through Nov. 2, a stretch of more than two months built entirely around eating your way through the town's restaurant scene rather than attending a single event. It starts five days after this month's Olde Time Fair wraps, which means the walkable corridor doesn't go quiet once August ends. It gets a second act.
For anyone who already calls Grove City home, the practical read is simple. If your plans this month center on Town Center Park, you can leave the car in the driveway and walk to dinner afterward at either of the two newest spots on Broadway. If your plans take you to Century Village or the Shrine Center, budget the drive and enjoy a completely different side of the same town. Both are worth your August. They just aren't the same trip.
If you're curious how neighborhoods like Grove City keep evolving, or you'd simply like to talk shop about what's changing block by block, Jordan Silcott would love to hear from you. Let's Connect.
