Ask someone who has lived in Foley since the Tanger Outlets expansion where the town's center of gravity sits, and they will probably point north, toward Highway 59 and OWA. That is where the last fifteen years of retail energy went. August 2026 is quietly rewriting that map.
The month's most talked-about opening, its biggest evening event, and its most durable piece of civic news all cluster within a mile of the Alston Street and Laurel Avenue intersection. The gravity has shifted back downtown, and if you already live here it changes where you spend a Thursday evening.
The Foley Bakery corner is the tell
The clearest signal is what is happening inside the historic Foley Bakery building at the corner of North Alston Street and West Laurel Avenue. Gulf Coast Restaurant Group is opening a Half Shell Oyster House there in the space most recently occupied by Colt Grill BBQ and Spirits, which closed in the summer of 2025 after a federal investigation into its owners resulted in the indictment of four people on charges including money laundering and labor exploitation. The group's vice president of operations told Gulf Coast Media they were hoping to open early in 2026, and the doors are now open under the Half Shell banner.
That matters because Half Shell is not a first location testing the market. The group already operates six Alabama locations in Spanish Fort, Mobile, Cullman, Pelham, Trussville and Tuscaloosa. When a chain of that scale picks the historic bakery corner over a pad site next to Tanger, the signal is about foot traffic downtown rather than car traffic on 59. Foley Main Street's executive director, Darrelyn Dunmore, called the selection a strong endorsement of the Downtown Foley district's caliber.
What is actually on the August calendar
The month's downtown programming reads like this:
| Date | Event | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Aug 20 | Third Thursday: The Arrr-gust Adventure | 200 W. Laurel Ave. |
| Sep 12 | Walk This Way 80's 5K | 125 E. Laurel Ave. |
| Sep 19 | Walk This Way: Mixtapes & Roller Skates block party | 200 W. Laurel Ave. |
Third Thursday is the regular anchor. From 5 to 7 p.m., participating downtown shops stay open after hours with treats, specials and drawings, and each month carries a theme. August 20 is running as "The Arrr-gust Adventure", following the July 16 "Christmas in July" edition. If you have not walked Laurel on a Third Thursday in a while, the roster of participating stores has grown enough that two hours is no longer generous. Doc Holliday's runs its own weekly Thursday event on top of the district-wide programming, and Manning Jewelry, South Baldwin Social, and the Foley Art Center each stage their own drawings, wine-and-appetizer service, and gallery receptions the same evening.
The rest of the new-storefront map
Downtown is not the only place with fresh paint. What is different in 2026 is that the newcomers are spread across the categories a resident actually uses, not just tourist-facing retail.
- Cook Out opened at 2550 S. McKenzie Street on April 25, 2026, serving burgers and milkshakes. It sits next to the car wash and Buffalo Wild Wings.
- Krystal relocated a couple of blocks down South McKenzie to 1919 S. McKenzie Street.
- Wingstop has leased 1,875 square feet in the Gallery 59 Shopping Center, with plans to open later in the year.
- Aura Nail Lounge opened on the Foley Beach Express, and Snug Home is running a monthly designer furniture and home decor pop-up at 11746 Foley Beach Express, between Highway 20 and Highway 98, with rotating inventory.
- Evermore Permanent Jewelry moved into its new spot at Tanger Outlets next to Polo Ralph Lauren and added ear piercing.
- Made in Colombia food truck is now parked at The Farmhouse Market at 3910 S. McKenzie Street, serving empanadas, salchipapas and burgers.
- Bikini Blink Bakery is open at OWA directly across from Murder Creek Moonshine, doing custom cakes, dipped strawberries, croissants and crepes.
- BJ's Wholesale Club is planned for a 14-acre site along the South Juniper Street Extension, about a block east of South McKenzie, with roughly a year of construction ahead.
The Winn-Dixie on the south end closed December 31, 2025, and the replacement tenant has not been publicly confirmed. If you shopped there weekly, that is the one gap on the map worth watching.
Graham Creek keeps compounding
The other thing that changed under residents' feet this year is the size of Graham Creek Nature Preserve. It is worth stepping back to appreciate the sequence.
The preserve currently spans about 650 acres near Wolf Creek Drive in southeast Foley, with 10 miles of hiking trails, two ADA-accessible boardwalks, a kayak launch, and four disc golf courses. In early 2024 the city accepted a $5 million GoMESA grant to purchase additional land for the preserve. Then, in the fall of 2025, NOAA awarded a $4 million Coastal Zone Management Habitat Protection and Restoration grant, funded through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, to help acquire more coastal land for what is already Alabama's largest municipal nature preserve. Foley's sustainability director Leslie Gahagan noted that NOAA awards very few of these grants nationwide each year.
Mayor Ralph Hellmich framed it more plainly:
"We've built strong partnerships with the Forest Service, the conservation department, and even the governor's office. Everyone recognizes the value of this preserve. It's like having a state park that the state doesn't have to operate."
For a resident, the practical translation is that the 500 acres you paddled and hiked in 2019 has become an amenity closer in scale to a small state park, permanently protected, and still five to twelve minutes from most homes in the city. That is the kind of adjacency that quietly reshapes what a Foley address means.
Why the shape of this month matters
Stitch it together and a pattern shows up. The city's biggest civic asset expansion is happening on the southeast edge. The most credible new restaurant is in the historic downtown core, not a Tanger pad site. The regular resident event, Third Thursday, is on Laurel. Even the September follow-up, the Walk This Way 80's 5K on September 12 at 125 E. Laurel Avenue, uses downtown streets rather than the Sports Complex.
Meanwhile the north-of-town retail machine keeps grinding forward. The new Public Works Campus on North Poplar Street is scheduled for completion in spring 2026, the old campus is being refurbished to house Parks and Recreation, and a new fire station is planned for the northeast area of the city. Both maps are getting denser at once. The difference in 2026 is that downtown is finally holding its own in the argument for where a resident spends discretionary time.
If you have out-of-town family visiting in the next few weeks, that changes the itinerary. A morning paddle at Graham Creek, lunch at Stacey's Old Tyme Soda Fountain, a Third Thursday walk down Laurel, dinner at Half Shell, and you never once drove onto Highway 59. Two years ago that day was harder to build.
When it is time to talk about your place in it
Watching a town's center of gravity shift is more than a lifestyle observation when you own a home here. Which streets are collecting evening foot traffic, which corners are attracting restaurant groups with six other Alabama locations, and which public amenities are compounding year over year all show up eventually in what a home in the surrounding blocks is worth to the right buyer.
If you have been curious what your Foley home would command in a market where the downtown story is getting stronger and the Graham Creek footprint is still growing, Top Tier Team is happy to run the numbers with you. Get your free home valuation, and we will walk you through what the current buyer pool is actually paying for on your block.
