If you live in Florence, you already know the rhythm of a weekend here has shifted a few miles south. Mall Road is still on the way to everywhere, but the places people are actually driving to on a Friday night sit closer to Houston Road, Turfway, and Thomas More Stadium.
This fall makes that shift hard to miss. Three restaurants have opened or are close to opening within a mile of one another, the Y'alls are heading into their last home stretch with two of the season's louder promotional nights, and the mall's future is finally being talked about in specifics instead of rumors.
The corridor most residents are already using
Florence has one of the healthiest retail markets in the state. Citywide vacancy sits below 4%, according to reporting from Mayor Julie Metzger Aubuchon's office earlier this summer. The Florence Mall property, by contrast, is closer to 60% vacant. That gap is the whole story. Retail didn't leave Florence. It moved down the interstate a few exits and reorganized itself around Houston Road and Turfway.
If you have driven past the Texas Roadhouse on Houston lately, you have probably noticed activity on the parcel next door. Plans presented to the Boone County Planning Commission by GreenbergFarrow, working on behalf of Turfway Commons Trust, showed a 3,600-square-foot restaurant with two drive-thru lanes for Jaggers, the fast-casual chain owned by the Texas Roadhouse group. Jaggers currently runs locations in Lexington and Louisville, and Florence would be the concept's first crack at the northern part of the state.
The food openings worth knowing by address
A quick map of what has changed within a short drive of the Mall Road exit:
- Crumbl Cookies, 6805 Houston Road. Opened in August in the former UBreakiFix space. Franchisees Jaxon and Claire Tews, who also run the Newport Crumbl, described the site as a long-sought lease in a tight retail corridor.
- Smokin' This and That BBQ, 1119 Boone Aire Road. The barbecue spot moved to a larger location off Highway 18, with outdoor seating and a rebuilt menu. Grand opening was in June.
- Mi Cozumel, 7484 Turfway Road. The family-run Mexican group's seventh location. Construction has been ongoing through the year and the storefront has been posting incremental updates.
- Ford's Garage, 4911 Houston Road. Not new, but worth remembering as the anchor of Saratoga Square, with its Burgers of Fame menu tied to names like Carly Pearce, former Florence Police Chief Tom Grau, and Cris Collinsworth.
- Spear Ridge Café. Still one of the more distinct sit-down options in town, with a barn-style room and menu items like the Catfish Po-Boy and Country Ham and Pimento sandwich. Kids eat free on Tuesday nights from 4 to 8 with an adult entrée.
Read that list as a corridor, not a directory. Three of the five sit within a mile of each other. That density is why the Turfway/Houston area now functions the way the mall's outer ring used to function on a Saturday.
Thomas More Stadium's final home stretch
The Y'alls have three more promotional dates that are worth putting on the calendar if you have not been out to Thomas More Stadium yet this year:
Fan Appreciation Night and Firework Friday, September 4. First pitch at 7:03 p.m. The Friday firework show is a consistent draw, and Fan Appreciation nights tend to run heavier on giveaways than a standard game.
Tacos and Tequila Festival with T.I., Ginuwine, Trina, and Chingy, September 18. Doors and festival at 7 p.m. This is a concert on the field rather than a baseball game, and it is the kind of event that fills the lot early.
Sara Evans at Turfway Park, November 21. Not Thomas More Stadium, but the same corridor. Worth a note for anyone who watches for country shows.
For context on the season itself, 2026 was the first year the Frontier League expanded to a 102-game schedule, giving the Y'alls 51 home games instead of the usual 48. The team also hosted the Frontier League All-Star Break in mid-July, with the Home Run Derby on July 14 and the Y'all Star Game on July 15. If you missed all of it, September is the last chance to catch a home game until May.
The standing weekday promotions are the ones that make a random Tuesday worth the drive: $2 Tuesday runs tickets, hot dogs, popcorn, 16-ounce sodas, and ice cream at two dollars apiece. Thirsty Thursday is $2 draft cans. Wrestlin' Wednesday puts live pre-game wrestling on the concourse.
The mall question, read honestly
The mall's situation is not a mystery anymore, and it is not the disaster it looks like from the parking lot. Here is what has actually been reported and what it means for someone who lives here.
The Florence Mall opened in September 1976. All four anchor properties are now for sale. Two Macy's stores went on the market in July of last year, Sears has been marketed for reuse, and JC Penney is being sold as part of a 120-store national portfolio being liquidated by the Copper Property CTL Pass Through Trust to reimburse investors from JC Penney's 2020 bankruptcy. The mall proper has its own owner, which means five separate parties would need to align on any redevelopment plan.
Mayor Aubuchon has been direct about this. In her comments to the NKyTribune in July and to WCPO in June, she framed the site as too valuable to stay as-is and floated a mix of office, hotel, residential, retail, and entertainment as more likely than a rebuilt mall. The city hired Wade Williams of the Montrose Group at up to $50,000 to run a reuse analysis. Nick Egelanian of SiteWorks Retail Real Estate Services, quoted by WCPO, has said a full redevelopment could take 15 years.
The practical takeaway for a Florence homeowner is simpler than the headlines suggest. The mall's decline is not a proxy for the city's health. Aubuchon put it plainly to Spectrum News earlier this year: if the mall goes away, the business community does not. The property has interstate frontage, sits three miles from Amazon's largest air hub, and is thirteen miles from downtown Cincinnati. Whatever eventually replaces the interior of that building will be more useful to daily life than the current version of it. That is not a small thing to price into how you think about your own home along Mall Road, Turfway, or the streets running east of Ewing Boulevard.
A Saturday that uses the new geography
Here is what a fall Saturday looks like if you build it around what has actually changed this year rather than out of habit:
Morning coffee and breakfast at Spear Ridge, then errands along Houston. A late lunch of pulled pork at Smokin' This and That's new Boone Aire Road room. If it is a game night, walk into Thomas More Stadium an hour before first pitch, get a Thirsty Thursday can or a $2 Tuesday hot dog depending on the night, and stay for fireworks on Friday. Crumbl for dessert on the way home. No stop at the mall, and no sense that anything is missing from the day.
That is the point of noticing the shift. The corridor already gives you a full afternoon and evening without leaving a three-mile radius. The mall's redevelopment, whenever it lands, will be an addition to that rhythm, not the center of it.
If you're thinking about your own address in all of this
For anyone who has watched the mall situation with one eye on their own home value, the neighborhood-level reading matters more than the citywide story. Which streets sit closest to the redevelopment radius, how the Houston Road buildout affects traffic and demand along Ewing and Turfway, and what any of that means for a specific block are conversations best had with someone who works these corridors every week.
That is our job. If you want a straight read on what your home is worth right now, or you are simply curious whether the fall's changes are moving the needle on your street, K2 Home Team is happy to sit down with you. You can request a home valuation or schedule a free consultation whenever it suits you. We would rather you know the numbers before you need them.
