If you've driven W. Olentangy Street lately, you've probably noticed the shift. What used to be a handful of standbys punctuated by empty storefronts is turning into something closer to a walkable food corridor, with new operators arriving faster than most of us can keep up with. The interesting part isn't just that Powell is getting more restaurants. It's that almost every announcement in the last twelve months has clustered inside the same few blocks of downtown, and the city is now weighing a proposal that would knit that cluster together with a boutique hotel.
Here's a resident's read on what's already open, what's on the way, and how the geography is shaping up.
The 2026 openings you can eat at right now
Two of the most talked-about arrivals sit almost across the street from each other on W. Olentangy.
At 170 W. Olentangy, CoccoKay Bites opened in the historic downtown area, founded by husband-and-wife team Bala and Priya Somakandan, with food and drink options from India and Sri Lanka as well as other European and Asian cuisines. The menu is genuinely unusual for a suburb this size. Menu items include biriyani, Indo-Chinese fried rice dishes, Indian street foods, European cakes and desserts, a large selection of bubble teas, and a signature four-foot-long dosa designed for sharing. If you've been meaning to try something you can't get anywhere else in the northern suburbs, this is the one.
A few blocks west at 345 W. Olentangy, Three Brothers Diner opened in the space that housed Monte Carlo Italian Kitchen before it closed in May. It's a family operation. The restaurant was founded by brothers Filadelfo, Nivardo and Eliseo Cruz, who are from Oaxaca, Mexico, and learned to cook from their mother, and it serves breakfast, lunch and dinner all day. Weekend breakfast in downtown Powell has been thin for years, and huevos rancheros at 2 p.m. on a Saturday fixes a real gap.
Just off Olentangy on the other side of downtown, at 240 N. Liberty St. inside Liberty Plaza, Glazed Over is now hand-rolling and hand-cutting donuts in small batches throughout the day. The shop originally opened in Sandusky in 2019, and the Powell location runs from 6:00 A.M. to 1:00 P.M. The early close is worth planning around. If you're walking downtown after school pickup, you've missed them.
What's announced but not open yet
The most interesting incoming name is Khaab. Khaab Indian Kitchen & Bar has announced plans for a new location in Powell in 2026, promising traditional recipes, a contemporary vibe, and elevated hospitality. The expansion builds on the success of the operator's Bexley location. Powell already has casual Indian options, so an upscale, bar-forward version is a different proposition, especially for date nights that used to require a drive to Dublin or Bexley.
The block that could pull it all together
This is the piece most residents haven't clocked yet. In early November, Transform Construction submitted plans for a two-story restaurant at 147 W. Olentangy St. and a three-story building at 173 W. Olentangy St. that would house another restaurant, retail space, and a 16-room boutique hotel, with a combined investment of about $7.8 million.
City officials are weighing 75% property tax abatements over 15 years for both sites, a structure under which the developer would save about $190,000 on the restaurant project and roughly $1.5 million on the hotel building. That's a real number, and it's the sort of decision that shapes what the walk from the library to Village Green feels like for the next decade.
The reasoning the city has offered is straightforward. The plan includes two dining spaces as a response to ongoing demand from residents, with the economic development administrator saying residents want more choices and restaurants in downtown. On the visitor side, the development team estimates the hotel could generate roughly $1.9 million in annual visitor spending if fully occupied year-round, based on the Ohio Department of Development's average that an overnight visitor typically spends about $327 per day, amounting to $28.7 million in economic activity over 15 years.
For a sense of the geographic compression, here's what a single stretch of W. Olentangy would look like if the proposal moves forward:
| Address | What's there or planned |
|---|---|
| 147 W. Olentangy St. | Proposed two-story restaurant |
| 170 W. Olentangy St. | CoccoKay Bites (open) |
| 173 W. Olentangy St. | Proposed 16-room boutique hotel, restaurant, retail |
| 345 W. Olentangy St. | Three Brothers Diner (open) |
Four food-and-hospitality anchors inside a two-block window is not the downtown Powell most of us moved to. It's a different animal.
The rooftop nobody's talking about enough
While the hotel is still in review, the other big lifestyle change downtown is already under construction through COhatch. COhatch's Powell location is expected to support nearly 200 jobs and about $1.5 million in annual payroll, and will include coworking offices, meeting rooms, event spaces, the "60 East Member House" in a renovated historic home, and the Lani Rooftop Lounge, a Hawaiian-inspired rooftop bar open to the public and available for private events.
A public rooftop bar in downtown Powell is a genuinely new category. If you've spent a summer here, you know the closest thing was somebody's back patio. Worth watching how Lani programs its calendar once it opens.
A short plan for the next few weekends
If you want to sample the new corridor without spending a whole Saturday on it, a workable sequence:
- Morning: Donuts at Glazed Over on N. Liberty before 1 p.m.
- Lunch: A shared four-foot dosa at CoccoKay Bites with anyone who thinks they've tried every cuisine in Delaware County.
- All-day breakfast: Chilaquiles verdes at Three Brothers Diner when the day gets away from you.
- On the calendar: Khaab's opening, and the first City Council votes on the 147 and 173 W. Olentangy projects.
What this means for the rest of downtown
A quick note on the pattern. When a downtown adds three restaurants inside a year, a proposed hotel, a rooftop bar, and a coworking anchor inside a few hundred feet, the ground shifts under the older tenants too. Foot traffic that used to skip past darkened windows now has reasons to linger, and the addresses in between the new anchors become more valuable to the next operator looking at Delaware County. That's the story worth watching over the next eighteen months, and it's why the block between 147 and 173 W. Olentangy is arguably the most consequential piece of real estate in the village right now.
If you own a home in Powell and you're wondering what all of this activity means for the value of what's around you, or you're eyeing a move closer to downtown and want a read on which streets are actually walking distance to the new corridor, the team at Terra Shoaf lives and works this market every week. Schedule a free consultation and we'll talk it through.
