For a decade, the honest answer to "where are we eating in Old Hilliard tonight" has been a short list, and the honest answer to "what's new" has been shorter still. That changes between now and the first frost. Two blocks of Main Street and a 27-acre parcel off Trueman Boulevard are absorbing four chef-driven restaurants at once, and the shift is happening fast enough that residents who left town for a long weekend can genuinely miss an opening.
This is a snapshot for people who already live in 43026. Not a tour. Not an evaluation. Just what is coming, where it is going, and how to think about the next few Thursdays.
The two blocks of Main Street doing the most work
The busiest stretch is between the railroad and Center Street. In June, the city announced that the former Chase Bank building and its neighboring parking lot on Main Street will be redeveloped into a mixed-use complex with dining, retail and living spaces, with the bank building preserved and turned into an Italian restaurant, and the neighboring parking lot becoming a new building with ground-floor dining and retail and luxury apartments on the upper level. Hilliard-based developer The Westwood Collective will build the project after entering into a development agreement with the Hilliard Development Corp.
A block west, another vacancy filled almost immediately. Harvest Pizzeria is expanding into downtown Hilliard, taking over 3987 Main St, a historic property that most recently housed Legacy Smokehouse, which closed last month after nine years of operation. It will be the sixth location for Harvest, which has built a following for wood-fired pizzas made with locally sourced ingredients, having launched in German Village in 2011 and expanded to Clintonville, Dublin, Bexley, and Granville.
Here is the near-term Main Street picture in one place:
| Address | What's coming | What it replaces | Timing |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3987 Main St | Harvest Pizzeria (6th location) | Legacy Smokehouse | Later fall 2026 |
| 4056 E. Main St | Sit-down Italian restaurant + luxury apartments (Westwood Collective) | Former Chase Bank | Timeline pending |
| 4021 Main St | Hilliard's Station Park (Celebration at the Station, DORA) | — | Active now |
The through line: two of the three biggest recent Main Street real estate moves involve preserving older buildings rather than clearing them. The bank building stays. The Legacy Smokehouse building, owned by developer Andy Warnock and his wife Ashley, was originally a residence and later spent 45 years as Bookphil, a rare bookstore. That matters if you like Old Hilliard the way it looks now.
TruePointe is finally acting like TruePointe
The mixed-use project off I-270 has been "coming" for so long that many residents stopped tracking it. It is worth tracking again. Equity CEO Steven Wathen has said Hilliard leaders and community members have been supportive of the development, and that some of the restaurants, apartments and office spaces will be opening within the first few months of 2026. The tenant list has since firmed up.
The first named restaurant is from Dayton. Founded in 2016, Old Scratch Pizza currently has four locations in southwest Ohio, including restaurants in Dayton, Troy, Beavercreek and Centerville. The restaurant will feature a full-service bar and a spacious patio, and is set to open in late summer or fall of 2026 alongside the initial launch of the TruePointe development. Neapolitan ovens, beer-hall room, patio. It reads more like a Grandview concept than a suburban chain slot.
The second is more ambitious. From Culinary Collectives comes Medley Kitchen, a communal dining concept inspired by shared food traditions from around the world, with owner Derek Bush describing it as a place where guests can learn about other cuisines while sharing their own, with a menu spanning tapas, dim sum, and mezze-style dishes. It's the company's first brick-and-mortar and will anchor the new TruePointe development in Hilliard. Bush has worked in leadership roles with Cameron Mitchell Restaurants and the Ohio State University's Hospitality Management program.
His pitch, in his own words:
Some of the best food in Columbus isn't widely publicized. It's anchored in neighborhoods full of loyal supporters who treat it as their own.
That is a Cameron Mitchell alum describing his neighborhood restaurant as belonging to the neighborhood before it opens. Read it twice.
TruePointe is also getting the softer daily infrastructure that decides whether a district becomes a habit or a novelty. A brunch restaurant, coffee shop and hair salon are all slated to be open at TruePointe.
A Thursday night in the interim
While the new places finish drywall, the free programming on Main Street has already scaled up. Celebration at the Station is back with 10 live shows plus a special bonus concert in April for 43026 Day, running Thursday evenings from June 4 through August 13 at Hilliard's Station Park in the heart of Downtown Hilliard, with music from 6:30 to 9 p.m. Station Park is a DORA, so you can grab a drink and a lawn chair without breaking any rules.
Remaining Thursdays this season worth putting on the calendar:
- July 16 — Lt. Dan's New Legs
- Aug. 6 — Conspiracy
- Aug. 13 — Fleetwood Gold (season closer)
If you have kids, the same park runs a splash pad through September, and the Hilliard Ohio Historical Society Historical Village is open Saturdays and Sundays from 1 to 5 p.m. April 25 through September, located in Weaver Park at 4162 Columbia Street, where you can walk the log cabin, one-room schoolhouse, caboose, and Hilliard's original train station. It is the kind of stop that turns a summer errand into a small outing without leaving Old Hilliard.
The rest of the summer calendar, briefly
Two anchor weeks are worth planning around if you have not already.
Freedom Fest runs July 4. Held on the first Saturday in July, Hilliard's Independence Day celebration is one of the biggest days in Hilliard, with the Freedom Fest festivities kicking off in Roger A. Reynolds Municipal Park with live music by a national artist, food trucks, inflatables and games, followed by a fireworks show after dusk.
Then the fair rolls in. The Franklin County Fair runs July 20 through 26, 2026, and features themed activities that celebrate the semiquincentennial. On Sunday, July 26 from 1 to 3 p.m., Scoop, Chalk, and Celebrate Ohio 250 Goes to the Fair fills the park with chalk art, free ice cream, and fountains. For families who use the fairgrounds as a shortcut the other 51 weeks of the year, plan your driving routes now.
One more retail note. In April, CAVA opened its first Columbus-area location at 1790 Hilliard Rome Rd, the first of three Columbus locations expected to open this year. That is on the west side of Hilliard, not downtown, but it is another data point in the same trend: national and regional operators are picking Hilliard first among their Columbus expansions.
What this actually means if you already live here
Two years ago, a serious dinner in Hilliard usually meant driving. That was the operating assumption behind a lot of real estate conversations here. Buyers weighing Hilliard against Dublin, Grandview, or Upper Arlington priced in the drive to dinner as part of the deal.
By late fall, the same buyer will be looking at four newly opened, chef-driven concepts in a two-mile radius: Harvest Pizzeria on Main, which will bring the brand's scratch-made, locally sourced approach to pizza that has built a loyal following since 2011; Old Scratch and Medley Kitchen at TruePointe; and a sit-down Italian concept in the old Chase building. That is the same density of new independent dining that markets like Grandview and Bexley leaned on for a decade of price appreciation.
None of this is a listing pitch. It is a note that the streetscape people already love is getting denser without getting louder, and the parts of Hilliard that were quiet on a Thursday night are becoming the parts that are not. Residents who bought here for the schools, the parks, and the small-town Main Street get to keep all of that and also get a walkable dinner on a Thursday. That is a rare combination in central Ohio right now.
If you own a home in Hilliard and you have been curious how a shift like this reads in resale value, or if you are quietly wondering whether to hold, refinance, or list in the next twelve months, that is a conversation worth having with someone who watches the neighborhood every week. The Laumann Group has been advising Hilliard owners through exactly these moments for years. Visit our Hilliard neighborhood page for local resources, or let's connect when you are ready to talk through what any of this means for your home.
