The corner of North Park Square and Root Street has been empty since 2010. Locals call it the Goldstein Gap, after the family that razed the Cuthbertson building and left the lot behind. In September 2025, the Marietta Historic Board of Review approved a Ted's Montana Grill for the site. On January 8, 2026, the company canceled the project. The lot is still empty.
That single reversal tells you more about the Square in 2026 than any list of openings could. The big national tenant walked away, and while it was walking, at least half a dozen owner-operated concepts moved in around it. If you have lived in Marietta for a while, this is the shift worth watching. The Square is not being built up by chains this year. It is being rebuilt by chefs and small operators who live nearby.
The Piastra Turn: A Restaurant Became A Grocery
Start at 45 West Park Square. For years it was Piastra, the Italian restaurant regulars treated like a living room. Chef Greg Lipman and his mother Betty Bahl closed it in early January and reopened the same address on January 19, 2026 as Asher & Rose Modern Grocers. Same team, same doors, entirely different function.
The market carries fresh produce, North Georgia cheeses, custom cuts of meat and fish, and house-made pantry goods including hummus, pimento cheese, pasta sauces, and prepared meals. The cafe kept some of the wine, cocktail, and pasta dishes that made Piastra popular, and added seasonal pizzas. Lipman told Rough Draft Atlanta the concept addresses a community need for a local market. Translation: a sit-down dinner spot converted itself into somewhere you can also grab dinner on the way home from a Friday concert.
If you already live within walking distance of the Square, that is the interesting number. One fewer white-tablecloth reservation slot, one more everyday errand you can now finish on foot.
Fork U's Two-Block Bet
Walk one block. At 29 West Park Square, the old Red Hare Brewing & Distilling space reopened April 20, 2026 as West Park Sports Club. Darker interior, leather seating, a wall of TVs, and a menu that reads more small-plates than wing-night: crispy rice with tuna, crab rangoon flatbread, bulgogi cheesesteak sliders. The operator is Fork U Concepts, the group behind Taqueria Tsunami and Stockyard Burgers & Bones on Mill Street.
That is the second full-service venue Fork U now runs within a two-minute walk on the Square. When a single local group underwrites two properties in the same historic district, they are voting on foot traffic they already measure firsthand. Worth remembering the next time you hear the Square is oversaturated.
The pattern to watch is not the openings in isolation. It is who is opening what. A grocery from the Piastra family. A sports bar from the Stockyard family. A Michelin-starred chef expanding across the street from himself. This is the Square investing in itself.
The Michelin Corner On Church Street
At 113 Church Street, Spring 2nd Branch now serves what the marquee describes as full-service Korean: dumplings, seafood pancakes, jjigae stews, cold noodles. It is walk-in only, and the chef is Brian So, whose Marietta restaurant Spring earned a Michelin star before closing for renovations in 2025.
In April 2026 the AJC reported that Spring itself has quietly reopened in a limited capacity, serving dishes like roasted wagyu picanha with Chinese broccoli and chili sabayon. Two restaurants from the same Michelin-starred chef, both operating on the Square, one casual and walk-in, one fine-dining. That is unusual for a suburban downtown of this size, and it is the kind of density that pulls dinner reservations from Buckhead and Sandy Springs rather than sending Marietta residents south.
What Else Landed In The First Half Of 2026
A short list, because these openings are easier to check off than describe:
| Opening | Where | When |
|---|---|---|
| Tacos La Villa (Canton Road) | 3545 Canton Road | January 21, 2026 |
| Tacos La Villa Cantina | Near Marietta Square | February 3, 2026 |
| Taqueria El Güero | 2200 Roswell Rd, Suites 160 & 170 | January 2026 |
| Deep Roots Wine Market & Tasting Room | Marietta Square | March 17, 2026 |
| Ike's Cafe & Grill | Cherokee Street | Early 2026 |
| Pisano's Pizzeria & Italian Kitchen | Former Ahoy! space next to Willie Rae's | Coming soon |
| Antika | 34 Powder Springs Street | Announced, opening date TBD |
Ike's is worth a line of its own. It grew out of Ike's Tropical Food Market in Norcross and brought a West African menu to Cherokee Street, including suya, pepper soup, jollof rice, waakye, and attieke. There is no other restaurant on the Square serving that cuisine, which is exactly why current residents should know it exists.
The 40th Anniversary Of Glover Park Concerts
If you have been to a Friday night on the Square in the last decade, you already know the Glover Park Concert Series. What is different in 2026: it is the 40th year, and the Downtown Marietta Development Authority booked a lineup that leans harder into tribute acts than usual. The series is presented by Wellstar Health System, concerts are free, and a limited number of tables can be reserved on the first working day of each month starting at 8 a.m.
Here is the 2026 schedule, all Fridays, all 8 p.m., all in Glover Park:
- April 24 — Yacht Rock Schooners, 70s smooth rock
- May 29 — A1A, Jimmy Buffett tribute, doubling as the official 40th anniversary night with pre-concert programming
- June 26 — Guardians of the Jukebox, 80s set
- July 31 — Seven Bridges, Eagles tribute
- August 28 — Kasper and the 911 Band, R&B and pop
- September 25 — Nashville Nation, modern country
If you have kids old enough to walk the Square unsupervised for an hour, the tribute-heavy programming is friendly to that. The May 29 anniversary night is the one to plan around.
The Rhythm Nobody Writes About
The concert series gets the posters. The pieces that actually shape a Marietta week are quieter:
The Marietta Square Farmers Market runs Saturdays, 9 a.m. to noon, year-round. Local produce, heirloom varieties, prepared foods, plants, and artisanal goods. If you time a Saturday morning right, you can hit the market, walk to Asher & Rose for the things the farmers market does not carry, and be back home before 11.
The Brown Bag Concert Series brings free music to Glover Park Thursdays from noon to 1 p.m. every week in May and September. It is a lunchtime program, not an evening one, and it is the reason a workday on the Square in those two months feels different from a workday in July.
The Marietta Square Art Walk runs the first Friday of every month, March through December, with galleries and restaurants staying open into the evening and outdoor art on display. First Friday in August, the Cobb International Film Festival takes over the Earl and Rachel Smith Strand Theatre from August 6 through 9.
Reading The Square In 2026
Come back to the Goldstein Gap for a second. A national brand received historic-board approval, secured a design, and then reversed course, citing social media feedback. The lot is still fenced. Meanwhile, in the same six-month window, a Michelin-starred chef opened a second concept, a longtime family restaurant converted itself into a market, and a local restaurant group doubled its Square footprint.
The market is telling you something specific about who succeeds here. It is not the operator who parachutes in with a national playbook. It is the operator who already knows which corner catches the concert crowd, which street closes for Art Walk, and which Thursday of the month the History Center draws families. That knowledge has always mattered in Marietta. In 2026 it appears to be the only thing that matters.
If you are thinking about how any of this shapes what your street or your section of the Square feels like a year from now, whether you plan to stay put or eventually move, that is a conversation worth having with someone who tracks the block-by-block texture. Terence Richardson works Marietta and the surrounding north Cobb neighborhoods, and reads the Square the way the people who live on it do.
Schedule your free market consultation.
