Walk down Summit or Fourth in July 2026 and you will notice something strange about the storefronts: half of the buzz is coming from addresses that already had a restaurant last year. Italian Village is not adding new dining rooms so much as it is recycling them, and the chefs behind the turnover are, in several cases, the same people who ran the concept before.
That is the story of this summer. The neighborhood's food scene is being rewritten inside its own walls.
The pattern hiding in plain sight
If you have lived here more than a couple of years, you already know the buildings. What is new is who is inside them.
At 36 E. Lincoln St., the space that housed Hiraeth from August 2023 to May 2024 has reopened as Metsi's, a wood-fired Italian restaurant from the same chef, BJ Lieberman, who also runs Chapman's Eat Market and Ginger Rabbit Jazz Lounge. The room now has a 10-foot wood-fired hearth downstairs and a bar upstairs, and Lieberman has described the concept as a passion project rooted in Italian cooking rather than another iteration of his tasting-menu work.
A few blocks north, Mezcla took over 1022 Summit St., the address most residents still remember as The Market Italian Village, which closed in 2022. Owner Garrett Talmage, formerly a chef at Cosecha Cocina, opened the doors last spring with a menu built around modern Mexican cooking that reaches out from there.
And on East Fifth, K Vida is preparing to open at 119 E. 5th Ave., the building Zaftig Brewery vacated in mid-2023. Owner Abraham Macias has been previewing the concept as "the evolution of Mexican dining in Columbus," with a menu that has teased enchiladas, steaks, shrimp, and calamari on social media ahead of a summer opening.
Three high-profile openings, three previously occupied addresses. If you are keeping a mental list of "new" places to try, it is worth knowing that each one arrives with the shape of the last tenant still visible in the floor plan.
A quick map of who replaced whom
| Address | Previous tenant | Now open (or opening) |
|---|---|---|
| 36 E. Lincoln St. | Hiraeth (2023–2024) | Metsi's, wood-fired Italian |
| 1022 Summit St. | The Market Italian Village (closed 2022) | Mezcla, modern Latin |
| 119 E. 5th Ave. | Zaftig Brewery (closed mid-2023) | K Vida, Mexican, summer 2026 |
| Budd Dairy, second floor | Simon's Bar (still there) | It Ain't Easy Bein' Tiki pop-up, Fri–Sat |
| Budd Dairy stall | Pokebap | Elevated Pizza |
The takeaway for a resident: when a friend asks where to go, the honest answer this summer is often "you have been to that building before, but the food is completely different now."
Budd Dairy is doing the same thing on a smaller scale
The neighborhood's food hall at 1086 N. Fourth St. runs the same play in miniature. Cameron Mitchell's Budd Dairy Food Hall opened in April 2021 with ten stalls, one of which was always designed to rotate. What is happening in 2026 is that the "permanent" stalls are rotating too.
Pokebap is closing its food hall location. Elevated Pizza is moving into that space. Ravello's Coffee has opened on the ground floor. Upstairs, Simon's Bar has been handed over on Friday and Saturday nights to a pop-up called It Ain't Easy Bein' Tiki, which runs 6 p.m. to midnight and, according to organizers, is likely to continue through the summer with no fixed closing date. Budd Dairy's other vendors are building tiki-themed menu items to pair with the drinks.
For a resident, that means a Friday night at Budd Dairy in July looks nothing like a Friday night there did last July. The ordering system is still the same, though: pick a seat, a server takes a drink order, and food comes from whichever stall you order from on your phone.
If you have not been to Budd Dairy in six months, treat it like a new visit. The bar upstairs is a different bar on weekends, and at least two of the kitchens have changed hands.
What has actually stayed the same
A few anchors have not moved, and they are worth naming because they are what a resident can rely on when everything else is in flux.
- Marcella's and Basi Italia remain the two names most consistently cited when Yelp compiles Italian in the neighborhood as of mid-2026.
- Arch City Tavern, TownHall, Brassica, The Eagle Short North, and The Guild House continue to show up on the neighborhood's short list of restaurants.
- Speck Italian Eatery and Martini Modern Italian sit just outside the neighborhood but pull heavily from Italian Village foot traffic.
If the new openings feel like too much churn to keep track of, these are the addresses that have been holding position while the turnover happens around them.
The fall date that reorganizes the neighborhood
Every restaurant conversation in Italian Village eventually bumps up against one weekend on the calendar. The Columbus Italian Festival returns to St. John the Baptist Italian Catholic Church at Hamlet and E. Lincoln Streets on October 9 through 11, 2026. The 2026 theme is "Roma Eterna," admission is $10 per day with children under 12 free with an adult, and the parade steps off from Goodale Park at 1 p.m. Sunday, running down High Street to Warren Street before entering the festival grounds. Organizers estimate 35,000 attendees across the three days.
For anyone living within a few blocks of the church, the practical impact is worth planning for now, not in October:
- Street access changes. Hamlet and Lincoln are the festival footprint, and cross traffic reroutes for the weekend.
- Parking compresses. If you host guests that weekend, walking-distance parking essentially disappears Friday evening through Sunday evening.
- Restaurants near the church book out fast, especially for late Saturday. Reservations made in August are not early.
The festival has been an Italian Village fixture for decades, but the surrounding restaurant lineup that greets those 35,000 visitors will be materially different from the one that greeted them in 2025. Metsi's, Mezcla, and, if the timing holds, K Vida will all be first-Italian-Festival-weekend rooms.
What this churn actually signals
There is a temptation to read a restaurant closing as bad news for a neighborhood. In Italian Village right now, the opposite reading is more accurate. Operators with track records elsewhere in the city, Lieberman from Chapman's, Talmage from Cosecha, Cameron Mitchell at Budd Dairy, are choosing to plant their next concept here rather than in the Short North proper or in a suburban lifestyle center. The buildings are old enough to have interesting bones and the foot traffic is dense enough to fill a 10-foot hearth on a Wednesday.
For a homeowner already on N. Fourth or Hamlet or Summit, that steady interest from established operators is more useful than any single opening. It is what keeps the storefronts from going dark for long stretches between tenants. The turnover you are watching this summer is the sign that the addresses hold value even when a specific concept does not.
A short list for the next few weekends
If you are trying to catch the neighborhood at its current moment before the fall calendar takes over:
- Book Metsi's for a weeknight before the festival weekend rush.
- Try Mezcla on a Sunday when Summit is calmer.
- Watch K Vida's Instagram, @kvidacbus, for the actual opening date.
- Put a Friday or Saturday on the calendar for the tiki pop-up at Simon's Bar inside Budd Dairy, ideally before the format changes again.
- Block October 9 through 11 for the festival, and if you are hosting out-of-town family that weekend, sort parking and reservations in August.
Italian Village has always been a neighborhood that rewards paying attention. This summer more than most, the reward for a resident is knowing which door on which block now leads somewhere different than it did last time you walked past it.
If you own a home here and are curious what all this restaurant activity is doing to values on your specific block, or if you are thinking about a move within the north-arc suburbs and want a read on how Italian Village compares, Greg Giessler at Cam Taylor Realtors is happy to talk through it. Get Your Free Home Valuation to start with a number, then have a conversation about what it means.
