Walk the north side of Garland Avenue in spring 2026 and you'll find two addresses mid-renovation, a block apart, both expected to open within weeks of each other. One opened in February. The other is still finishing tenant improvements. Neither is a chain, and neither owner chose the block by accident.
Taylor Rainwater, who opened Temple Tavern on February 13th at 706 W. Garland, put his reasoning plainly before opening day: the district has "limited pizza and Italian food options." That kind of gap assessment is what draws owner-operators to a neighborhood rather than a high-traffic downtown corridor. Garland already has the loyal regulars. What it lacked was a specific kind of dinner anchor, and Rainwater bet on that gap with from-scratch pizza and pasta inside a 1922 Masonic Temple building that has housed Spokane businesses through five economic eras.
A block to the west, Aaron Fiorini is converting 828 W. Garland into Red Rose Social, a craft cocktail bar occupying the space vacated by the Garland Drinkery, which closed in 2025. According to the Spokane Journal of Business (February 2026), the 850-square-foot room is in active renovation with no firm opening date confirmed, but the gap it fills is just as legible as Rainwater's. The district's bar scene has long leaned on Garland Brew Werks and a handful of long-standing pubs. A dedicated cocktail bar has been absent.
Two gaps, two deliberate bets, same block, same month.
What Makes This Block Worth the Bet
The Garland District's case for new tenants has been compounding since 1910, when a street rail line first organized commerce along the avenue. The Garland Theater opened in 1945 and never left — a Streamline Moderne building that still runs films and served as a filming location for Benny & Joon and VisionQuest. Mary Lou's Milk Bottle, a structure so recognizable it functions as a neighborhood landmark, serves milkshakes and patty melts a few doors down. Ferguson's Cafe has occupied the same diner space long enough that regulars track seasons by its menu. Garland Brew Werks keeps local taps rotating with seasonals. The Garland Sandwich Shoppe, which opened in 2008, has outlasted three recessions.
Rainwater and Fiorini are not arriving to create a district. They are arriving because one already exists, with a regulars base and a foot-traffic pattern that chain operators cannot manufacture or pay to replicate. That is a different kind of location calculus, and it is what separates the Garland openings of 2026 from a generic restaurant boom. The anchors earned the new tenants.
Temple Tavern: What Is Actually on the Menu
"Casual Italian" covers a wide range, and Rainwater's approach leans further from casual than the name might suggest. He makes the dough every morning. The menu features the Tribute pizza — pepperoni, ricotta, peppers, and honey — alongside hand-rolled gnocchi tossed in pesto with kale and sausage. On the cocktail side, the Banana Bread Espresso Martini and the Monk, a rye drink built on Chartreuse, Fernet, and vanilla syrup, are the early standouts.
The restaurant sits at 706 W. Garland between Wall and Post streets, inside the Masonic Temple building. The Garland Theater is roughly two blocks east. For years, the most logical post-movie dinner nearby meant either Ferguson's, if you wanted diner fare, or a drive. The dinner-and-movie loop the district has quietly needed a proper Italian anchor for now has one.
The Downtown Wave Is Running a Different Play
What is happening on Garland in 2026 is a gap-fill — specific absences, identified and addressed by operators who studied the block. What is happening downtown at the same time is closer to category expansion, new formats arriving where no clear predecessor existed.
Yo Dumplings opened in January inside Brick West Brewing at 1318 W. First Avenue, and the pitch is accurate: it is Spokane's first dumpling restaurant. Chef and owner Jocelyn Dupree, working alongside sous chef Brittany Moreau, built a menu around world street fusion — Southern smokehouse technique applied to Asian formats. Korean brisket bao tacos, Texas brisket Philly egg rolls, and chorizo potato pot stickers sit alongside bulgogi beef ale-battered loaded fries. Dupree is not filling a gap so much as opening a lane that was not there before. Lunch runs 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.; dinner from 3 p.m.
Spokane Slice took a different approach in February, setting up inside the Saranac Commons building at 19 W. Main — which already houses Black Label Brewing and Boots Vegan — and built for the downtown lunch and post-event crowd rather than destination dining. The Talotti family brought square-cut pizza by the slice or whole pie, with vegan and gluten-free options, open Monday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Coming in April, Fireweed Baking Co. will open at 1516 W. Riverside inside The Dormitory building. Owner Lynette Pflueger previously managed Common Crumb Bakery in the Saranac Commons building and is going independent with a menu of soups, salads, sandwiches, bowls, fresh-baked goods, and grazing boards. The grand opening is planned for Bloomsday weekend, Saturday, May 2nd. June & Co. is also under construction at 123 N. Wall Street downtown, with no confirmed opening date as of this writing.
What separates these downtown arrivals from the Garland openings is not quality or ambition — it is context. Downtown draws foot traffic from offices, events, and hotel guests; it rewards variety and accessibility. Garland draws from a residential core that walks the same blocks weekly. An Italian restaurant on Garland becomes a neighborhood institution or it closes. A pizza-by-the-slice spot in Saranac Commons serves whoever happens to be downtown at noon. Both models work. They are just solving different problems.
The 140-Restaurant Benchmark
Inlander Restaurant Week 2026, held February 26 through March 7, drew more than 140 restaurants across the Spokane-Coeur d'Alene area — 30 of them joining the event for the first time. Three-course dinners ran at $25, $35, or $45.
The 30-first-time-participants figure is not a marketing statistic. It reflects operators who opened recently enough and found their footing quickly enough to commit to a volume event with fixed pricing and public menus. Set against previous years, when the restaurant pipeline was thinner and new openings were slower to stabilize, that number suggests the current class of Spokane restaurants is converting to durable businesses at a higher rate. For someone who eats out regularly, that means more options at the mid-range price point and fewer situations where a new spot you loved in October has already closed by February.
How the Spring Calendar Fills In
Spokane restaurants time openings around the city's energy calendar. Bloomsday draws tens of thousands of participants and produces the kind of foot-traffic surge that gives new businesses their first real stress test. Fireweed Baking Co.'s choice of Bloomsday weekend as its grand opening date is a deliberate bet on that moment. Temple Tavern, which opened in mid-February, had the Inlander Restaurant Week surge as its first extended high-traffic window — a useful proving ground before the quieter stretch between the event and spring.
The spring sequence now reads: Temple Tavern and Spokane Slice are open. Red Rose Social and Fireweed Baking Co. are still in construction. June & Co. is still framing downtown. By May, the city's food map will look meaningfully different from how it looked in January, and the Garland District — which opened the year with its longest-standing gaps still unfilled — will have added the two pieces it was missing while keeping everything that made those pieces worth adding.
Thinking About Spokane for the Long Term?
The people who track a district's new openings most closely are often the same people thinking about long-term value in a neighborhood. The Collection Spokane — Gayle Terry, Kathi Pate, and Tony Vaughn — has spent years watching which changes in the Spokane market signal staying power and which ones are noise. If you are weighing a move, considering a sale, or simply want to understand what your home is worth in a market that is shifting block by block, request a complimentary consultation and home valuation. There is no obligation, and the conversation starts wherever you are.
