If you spent the winter avoiding the Square, you missed a rewrite. The buildings look the same. The tenants inside them do not. In the six months between New Year's Eve and the start of concert season, one anchor restaurant closed on the last night of 2025, three new operators moved in, a Michelin-starred kitchen quietly turned its lights back on, and the most-watched vacant lot on the Square lost its most-watched tenant before ground ever broke.
The story worth telling is not the list of openings. It is the pattern underneath: Marietta Square in 2026 is being redefined by what kind of place each new operator is choosing to open, not by new construction. A grocer instead of an Italian restaurant. A polished sports bar instead of a brewery. A wine shop with a tasting counter instead of another sit-down concept. If you live here, the useful summer knowledge is knowing which door leads to which experience now.
The block that changed hands
Start on West Park Square, because that is where the biggest shift happened. On December 31, 2025, Piastra served its last dinner as Piastra after a decade at 45 West Park Square. Chef Greg Lipman and his mother, Betty Bahl, then flipped the same address into Asher & Rose Modern Grocers, opening January 28, 2026. The point of the new concept is not just a menu change. It is a category change. Where you used to book a table, you now walk in for North Georgia cheeses, custom cuts from the butcher counter, house-made pimento cheese and pasta sauces, prepared meals, and a small café that still runs some of the dishes and drinks Piastra was known for.
Two doors down at 29 West Park Square, the old Red Hare Brewing & Distilling space reopened April 20, 2026, as West Park Sports Club, an upscale sports bar from Fork U Concepts, the group behind Taqueria Tsunami and Stockyard Burgers and Bones. Darker interior, leather seating, plenty of screens, and a menu that runs from crab rangoon flatbread to bulgogi cheesesteak sliders. It is a sports bar the way the Square does sports bars now, which is to say, one you would take a client to.
A block over, Deep Roots Wine Market & Tasting Room officially opened March 17, 2026, giving the Square a dedicated wine retailer with a tasting counter, a category it did not really have before.
The through-line: three West Park Square doors, three different operators, three concepts that broaden the Square rather than duplicate it.
The Goldstein Gap keeps its streak
The vacant lot at 77 North Park Square, across from Glover Park, is the most conspicuous empty parcel on the Square. Locals call it the Goldstein Gap. The Cuthbertson building was razed on the site in 2010, and it has been vacant ever since. In 2025, Ted's Montana Grill cleared Historic Board of Review and the City Council for a 4,311-square-foot single-story building on the lot. On January 8, 2026, Ted's confirmed it was canceling the project, citing negative social media feedback. Sixteen years vacant is now seventeen.
If you are watching how the Square evolves, this is the parcel to keep an eye on. It sits directly opposite the concert stage in Glover Park, on a corner that would meaningfully change how North Park Square feels in the evening. Every operator who has looked at it has walked away, and that fact is now part of the Square's real character, not a footnote.
Spring is back, quietly
If you had written off 36 Mill Street, look again. Spring, the Michelin-starred fine-dining restaurant from Chef Brian So, shut down last year for renovations. In April 2026, the AJC reported that Spring had reopened in a limited capacity, announced on social media rather than through a press push. That matters for two reasons. First, Marietta's only Michelin-starred restaurant is operational again. Second, Chef So is preparing a second concept, Spring 2nd Branch, a full-service Korean restaurant at 113 Church Street built around dumplings, seafood pancakes, stews, and cold noodle dishes. Same chef, same block, two very different rooms.
For residents, this is a shift in what the Square offers at the top end. A year ago, the fine-dining conversation on the Square was in a holding pattern. Now there is a working tasting menu at Mill Street and a Korean sibling concept in the pipeline within walking distance.
The last Friday of every month, decoded
The Glover Park Concert Series turns 40 this summer, and it still operates the way it always has: last Friday of the month, April through September, 8:00 p.m., free, in Glover Park on the Square. The city's concert page has the full lineup. If you have lived here five years, you know the drill. If you have lived here five months, here is the calendar worth putting on the fridge.
| Date | Act | Style |
|---|---|---|
| June 26 | Guardians of the Jukebox | 1980s soundtrack |
| July 31 | Seven Bridges | Eagles tribute |
| August 28 | Kasper and the 911 Band | R&B and pop hits |
| September 25 | Nashville Nation | Modern country |
Two rules worth knowing before you show up. Only blankets and lawn chairs are permitted inside Glover Park. If you want a table, you set it up in the street on North or East Park Square after 6 p.m., once the street closes to traffic. Reserved tables go on sale on the first working day of each month at 8:00 a.m., and they do sell out. Free parking is available at City Hall, 205 Lawrence Street, and the Care Here lot at 268 Lawrence Street.
The concert calendar matters for a reason beyond the music. On concert Fridays, the surrounding blocks become the dining anchor for the evening. Asher & Rose is a picnic supply run. West Park Sports Club is where you go if your group is split between the show and a game. Deep Roots is where the wine on your blanket came from. The new operators are not competing with the concerts. They are provisioning them.
What is still on the way
A few concepts have been announced but are not open yet. Worth knowing so you can plan around them.
- Pisano's Pizzeria & Italian Kitchen is coming to Marietta Square in the former Ahoy! There Be Dragons gallery space next to Willie Rae's Social House. The original location is in downtown Kennesaw.
- Antika is a new food-service concept at 34 Powder Springs Street, taking the former Frozen Goose space, which closed at the end of November 2025. Menu and opening date are still unconfirmed as of the food-service inspection dated April 14, 2026.
- Spring 2nd Branch at 113 Church Street from the Spring team.
- Dumpling Master has listed Marietta as a coming-soon Georgia location, though the exact address and date have not been released.
One closure worth noting alongside the openings: Heavenly BBQ permanently closed on March 1, 2026. If it was in your rotation, it isn't anymore.
The pattern worth naming
Step back and the Square's 2026 reads less like a batch of unrelated announcements and more like a deliberate broadening. A specialty grocer, a wine market, a sports club, a Korean restaurant in the works, a Michelin room back in service. Ten years ago, the Square was a dinner destination. In 2026, it is closer to a full-day district, which is a different thing to live near.
For anyone thinking about property on the streets that feed into the Square, that pattern matters more than any single opening. Walkable-to-the-Square addresses now walk to a broader set of daily uses than they did a year ago. That is the kind of change that shifts how a neighborhood is lived in before it shows up in any market report.
If you are weighing a move within Marietta, or trying to figure out what your current block might feel like a year from now, Kelley Lowrimore is happy to walk the Square with you and talk through what the last six months have actually changed on the ground. Let's Connect.
