On Monday, October 5, Hawkers Asian Street Food opened on the ground floor of the newest building at McEwen Northside, 4020 Aspen Grove Drive. The menu has Korean twice-fried wings, five-spice green beans, and roti canai with a curry dipping sauce, served with craft cocktails and sake. Less than two weeks earlier, on September 23, Bravado Small Plates & Pizzabar began dinner service at 1770 Galleria Boulevard.
Those two openings finish a pattern that took the whole year to form. The Cool Springs side of Franklin began 2026 by adding drive-through lanes, and it is ending the year by adding dining rooms.
The Year on One Page
| Opened | Name | Address | Format |
|---|---|---|---|
| Feb. 25 | In-N-Out | 1951 Double Double Drive, Berry Farms | Drive-through, 74 seats inside, covered patio for 54 |
| By March 5 | Pelato | 1914 Galleria Boulevard | Sit-down Italian, cocktails |
| By March 9 | SOS Counter | 701 Cool Springs Boulevard | Sourdough, pastries, daily lunch |
| March 24 (announced) | Whataburger | 3075 Mallory Lane | Drive-through |
| May 20 | Truce | 1809 Mallory Lane | All-day "fine food fast" |
| Sept. 23 | Bravado Small Plates & Pizzabar | 1770 Galleria Boulevard | Small plates, pizza, cocktails |
| Oct. 5 | Hawkers Asian Street Food | 4020 Aspen Grove Drive, McEwen Northside | Shareable street food, sake |
Read top to bottom, the table moves from speed to staying put. The first half of the year was built around getting food into the car. The fall openings are built around a table, a cocktail list, and plates meant for sharing.
Spring Belonged to the Drive-Through
The year's biggest opening came early. In-N-Out opened on February 25 in Berry Farms, as the Tennessean reported, and the restaurant seats 74 inside and 54 more on a covered patio. FranklinIs had described the Franklin location as the company's first restaurant in Tennessee. Whataburger then announced a March 24 opening at 3075 Mallory Lane, with made-to-order burgers and its Honey Butter Chicken Biscuit, Williamson Source reported.
Truce, which opened May 20 at 1809 Mallory Lane, falls between the two formats. It occupies 4,530 square feet and calls its approach "fine food fast." The kitchen cooks from scratch and leans organic, serves breakfast through dinner, has a large community patio, and has a drive-through and mobile pickup in its plans, according to FranklinIs. A large patio and a drive-through lane in the same plan show the mix of speed and sitting that Mallory Lane leaned toward by midyear.
SOS Counter opened on the first floor of Highwoods Park West at 701 Cool Springs Boulevard and was serving by March 9. Its sourdough, pastries, and daily lunch put a weekday option inside an office park.
Galleria Boulevard Is Refilling Its Own Rooms
Pelato was the one early-year opening that pointed toward dinner. By March 5 it was open at 1914 Galleria Boulevard, in the space Party Fowl used to occupy near CoolSprings Galleria. It serves Brooklyn-Italian food built on family-recipe pasta, with shareable plates in a tapas style, cocktails, and frozen drinks.
The address is the story. Pelato did not need a new building. It took over a familiar room on a road that most Franklin households know by its mall traffic, and it brought a menu designed for staying a while.
Bravado continued the same pattern down the boulevard at 1770 Galleria Boulevard. It opened in stages, starting dinner on September 23, adding brunch on October 3, and adding lunch with the full grand-opening schedule on October 5. The menu pairs Italian-inspired small plates and fresh pasta with Neo-Neapolitan pizza from a wood-fired oven and a cocktail program. The dining room has a playful interactive mural.
The two restaurants share a format. Both serve Italian food meant for sharing, both have a full bar, and both are on the same stretch of Galleria Boulevard. With Bravado's opening in late September, that stretch now has two sit-down Italian dining rooms, both opened since the start of the year.
Some long-running restaurants have closed while these opened. Tupelo Honey closed its location at 2000 Meridian Boulevard on Monday, July 27, after ten years, when its lease ended, Williamson Source reported. In the same summer, Cool Springs lost a decade-old dinner spot and gained new dining rooms nearby.
McEwen Northside Built the Room From Scratch
Galleria Boulevard is reusing existing spaces. McEwen Northside put up a new building. Hawkers and Culinary Dropout anchor the ground floor of the district's newest building, which is part of a $125 million, 300,000-square-foot expansion.
The upper floors came first. Williamson Source quoted Mark Traylor before the opening: "We've already welcomed office tenants to the upper floors, with more on the way; and soon, the ground level will be home to these beloved restaurants, further establishing McEwen Northside as a place where memories are made, especially over a great meal." With office workers upstairs and restaurants below, the building is designed to draw people both at lunch and after work.
Culinary Dropout has been open longer than the fall coverage might suggest. It opened at 4020 Aspen Grove Drive, Suite 101, on September 10, 2025. At launch it offered games and free live music, with music scheduled Thursday through Sunday, according to FranklinIs. Hawkers now fills the rest of that ground floor about a year later.
Hawkers is the company's second restaurant in Middle Tennessee. Its first Tennessee location opened in East Nashville at 626 Main Street in 2020. As of the October 4 announcement, the Franklin location had not posted its hours.
The Weeknight Calendar Comes From the Restaurants
After the drive-throughs of spring, the fall openings depend on people sitting down on a weeknight. In McEwen Northside, the regular programming for those nights comes from restaurant events, not from district-run events on the lawn.
The district's lawn, Central Park, hosts community gatherings, outdoor workouts, and live music. Its Music on the Lawn series ran on Thursdays from May 7 through July 30, 2026, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Since that series ended, McEwen's October 2026 event directory has listed two recurring nights:
- Tuesdays: Neighbors Franklin Trivia, including October 6
- Wednesdays: Ballad Bingo, including October 7
- Thursday through Sunday: Culinary Dropout's live music, according to its opening coverage
Put together, that covers most of the week on a single block. Galleria Boulevard does not have a district calendar. There, the draw is the restaurants themselves, with Bravado serving three meals a day as of October 5 and Pelato a short drive up the road.
Still in the Pipeline
A few announced names have not opened yet, so none of them belong on this fall's dinner list.
- Paris Baguette is announced for McEwen Northside's Block E. The Williamson Source announcement said no official Franklin opening date had been set.
- H. Audrey, a women's fashion boutique, was expected to open at McEwen Northside in early summer 2026, with a bigger grand-opening celebration later in the season. No confirmed opening date has been published.
- Char and PennePazze were listed as 2026 targets for Canteen on Carothers, at 800 Crescent Centre Drive, in a FranklinIs roundup from December 2025. Neither had a specific opening day.
If Char and PennePazze open on schedule, Carothers would add more table service on the same side of town, joining Galleria Boulevard and Aspen Grove Drive as the year ends.
New dining rooms change how a part of town feels to live near, and that is the kind of detail we follow closely at The Sarah Nicodemus Group. If you'd like to talk through how Cool Springs and McEwen Northside fit your next chapter in Franklin, start your journey home and book a free consultation.