Today, a new taco stall opens inside Marietta Square Market. El Jalisco is the latest name to fill a spot in a food hall that has swapped tenants more than once this year, and if you only skim the headlines, that's the whole story: another opening, another stall, another reason to walk the Square this weekend. But the businesses that actually changed the character of downtown Marietta in 2026 didn't open. They came back, run by the same people who built them the first time.
That distinction matters if you spend your Friday nights within walking distance of the courthouse lawn. The Square isn't cycling through owners the way a strip mall does. It's watching the people who already had a stake here decide what to become next.
The Renovation Instead of the Relocation
Spring, the small New American restaurant Chef Brian So and sommelier Daniel Crawford opened years ago in a brick-walled room off the Square, earned a Michelin star in 2024. Then it closed for renovations and stayed dark for the better part of a year, long enough that regulars started asking around. It came back quietly in February 2026, with no press tour and no grand reopening event, just a social post and a dining room that filled up again. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Henri Hollis confirmed the return in his April dining column, describing a restaurant that had reopened "in a limited capacity" after the shutdown.
So had every reason to take that Michelin star somewhere bigger. Instead he rebuilt the same footprint he already had and opened a second, entirely different concept blocks away: Spring 2nd Branch, a walk-in-only Korean spot inspired by the restaurants he ate at as a kid. He's talked about how personal that project is to him, calling it a chance to represent the broad range of Korean cooking rather than a single trend dish. That's not a chef expanding a brand. That's a chef doubling down on one block of one small city.
The Restaurant That Became a Grocery Store
A few doors down, Piastra closed its final dinner service on December 31, 2025, after roughly a decade as one of the Square's special-occasion Italian rooms. Chef Greg Lipman and his mother, Betty Bahl, who had run it that whole time, didn't sell the lease or walk away. They converted the same address into Asher & Rose Grocers, a market-and-café hybrid with a butcher counter, prepared meals, and a wine list, and held a grand opening on January 26, 2026.
The wine list didn't go anywhere. It just moved next to the cheese case. What used to require a reservation now happens on a Tuesday afternoon errand run, and the people behind the counter are the same ones who spent ten years learning what this particular block of Marietta wants to eat.
What's Actually New, and What's a Comeback
Not everything on the Square this year is a returning act. Some of it is genuinely new, and it's worth telling the two apart, because they say different things about where the neighborhood is headed.
| Business | What happened | When |
|---|---|---|
| Spring | Michelin-starred flagship reopened after a year-long renovation, same owners, same address | Back since February 2026 |
| Spring 2nd Branch | New Korean concept from Spring's own chef, a few blocks from the original | Open since fall 2025 |
| Asher & Rose Grocers | Piastra's founders converted their restaurant into a market and café | Grand opening January 26, 2026 |
| El Jalisco | New Mexican stall inside Marietta Square Market | Opens today, August 17, 2026 |
| Deep Roots Wine Market & Tasting Room | New wine shop and tasting room on Church Street | Open since around March 2026 |
| Pisano's Pizzeria & Italian Kitchen | New York-style pizza backfilling the former Ahoy! gallery space next to Willie Rae's Social House | Opening date not yet announced |
The genuinely new arrivals are filling gaps: a wine bar where there wasn't one, a pizza shop in a vacant storefront, a food hall stall that turns over the way food halls do. The comebacks are doing something different. They're proof that the people who already built something here would rather rebuild than leave.
Franklin Gateway Is Playing a Different Game
If you want to see what actual new-blood investment looks like in Marietta right now, drive a few minutes down Franklin Gateway instead of the Square. That corridor sat mostly overlooked for years. This year it picked up Casa Grande Bar & Grill, which opened February 13, 2026, bringing Mexican dishes with Peruvian and Spanish touches to a stretch that used to be easy to skip.
The bigger story on Franklin Gateway isn't open yet. A proposed 34-acre professional women's soccer training headquarters, linked to AMB Sports and Entertainment, went through rezoning hearings this spring. Whatever the outcome, a project of that scale would bring a kind of attention and weekend traffic to that corridor that the Square has never had to plan for. The Square is reinvesting in what it already is. Franklin Gateway is auditioning for what it could become.
The Deal That Didn't Happen
Not every proposal for the Square lands, and the one that fell apart is its own kind of evidence. Marietta's Historic Board of Review had approved a design for a new building on the long-vacant lot at 77 North Park Square, intended to house a Ted's Montana Grill. The chain later reversed course, and the lot is still a lot. Historic approval alone didn't guarantee a national name a spot on the Square. Whatever eventually goes there will have to answer to the same board that's watched local operators like So and Lipman reinvest in their own addresses instead.
"It's the type of restaurant that's very personal to me." — Chef Brian So, on Spring 2nd Branch
The Calendar Worth Circling
None of this changes what a Friday night on the Square actually looks like, and that rhythm is still the reason most people show up in the first place.
- August 28: Glover Park Concert Series continues with its free outdoor show, and the Marietta Cobb Museum of Art typically opens its doors for the evening as part of it.
- September 4: First Friday Art Walk returns, part of a season marking the tradition's 20th year, with galleries and shops staying open from 5 to 9 p.m.
Neither requires a ticket. Both are the kind of low-effort plan that works whether you're meeting friends for a drink at Asher & Rose or grabbing tacos from the new stall at the food hall before the music starts.
The version of the Square that gets written about most is the one with new signage and ribbon cuttings. The version that actually explains what's happening here is quieter: chefs and owners who had every reason to cash out or move on, choosing instead to keep building on the same block they started on. That's not a neighborhood in transition. It's one that already knows what it wants to be.
If you're curious what that kind of neighborhood stability means for property values, rental demand, or timing a move into Marietta, Sara Harper has spent years watching how blocks like this one hold their character while everything around them changes. Let's Connect.
