South Windsor Food Scene in 2026: Two Corridors, One Town

If you've talked to a neighbor about food in South Windsor this year, you've probably heard some version of the same story: Evergreen Walk had its moment, and now everything interesting is happening down on Sullivan Avenue. It's a clean narrative. It's also only half right.

The biggest single addition to the town's dining scene this year, Sally's Apizza, isn't a Sullivan Avenue story at all. It's landing at Cedar Crossing, the development at the corner of Cedar Avenue and Buckland Road that O'Connell Development Group built as an expansion of Evergreen Walk itself, leasing roughly half its space to Chipotle, Starbucks, and Cold Stone before turning the rest over to Sally's. Meanwhile Sullivan Avenue really is filling in, but with a different mix of businesses entirely; whether the proposed redevelopment has anything to do with those openings remains unknown.

Two corridors are growing at the same time, in different ways. That's the actual shape of the story.

The Cedar Avenue Half of the Story

Sally's Apizza is New Haven's coal-fired pizza institution, the kind of name that CT diners recognize immediately, and its arrival in town is being treated by some as evidence that the action has left Evergreen Walk. The address tells a different story. Sally's is going into Cedar Crossing, a commercial development O'Connell Development Group built specifically to extend the Promenade Shops at Evergreen Walk, and it's sitting alongside Chipotle, Starbucks, and Cold Stone Creamery, all part of the same leasing push. Cold Stone has already opened its doors at 19 Cedar Avenue, joining an existing PeoplesBank banking center on the same parcel.

In other words, the Sally's opening isn't Sullivan Avenue pulling business away from Evergreen Walk. It's Evergreen Walk expanding into a new corner of its own footprint. If you've been assuming the mall corridor is done growing, Cedar Crossing is the piece of evidence that says otherwise.

What's Actually New on Sullivan Avenue

None of that means Sullivan Avenue is quiet. It's just filling in with a different kind of business, and mostly independent or regional operators rather than national chains testing a second South Windsor address.

Benson's Bagels is finishing its third Connecticut location at 1014 Sullivan Avenue, following existing shops in Springfield and Enfield. A few doors down, the Wicked Press opened in February at 948 Sullivan Avenue as a combined coffee shop and bookstore, the kind of concept that doesn't usually show up in a strip plaza. Next to it at 942 Sullivan, Three Amigos Mexican Taqueria has been under construction for months. Down the road at the newer Sullivan Corner Plazas development, 154 Sullivan Avenue, Domino's joined the lineup alongside Hartford Baking Company and Dazzling Pho N' Drinks, two tenants that got there first. And in April, YC Nail & Spa opened at 150-2 Sullivan Avenue, offering manicures, pedicures, and custom nail services.

Line those addresses up and a pattern shows up that's different from Cedar Crossing's. This isn't one developer leasing out a single new building to a handful of national names. It's a scattered set of independent openings across several separate properties, the kind of organic fill-in that usually means a street corridor is becoming a destination in its own right rather than an overflow zone for a shopping center two miles away.

A Possible Backdrop for Sullivan Avenue's Growth

The proposed redevelopment is one possible backdrop to the independent openings on Sullivan Avenue.

A long-stalled redevelopment of the old Geissler's plaza on Sullivan Avenue is moving again. Land-use applications filed by REESG Properties, with attorney Eliot B. Gersten as principal, would merge three parcels at 959, 1017, and 1079 Sullivan Avenue into a single project with 125 apartments and roughly 60,000 square feet of renovated commercial space. The plan keeps three existing structures on the site, a 50,372-square-foot 1965 shopping center building, a small service station, and a bank branch, while adding four three-story apartment buildings, a clubhouse, and a pool. The applications are still working through Planning and Zoning, Inland Wetlands, and the Water Pollution Control Authority, so nothing is approved yet.

If approved and built, the project would add 125 apartments within walking distance of Sullivan Avenue's businesses, potentially bringing new customers to the corridor. The plan is one possible part of the area's future, alongside the independent openings already underway.

Planning a Weekend Around Both Ends of Town

Once you stop treating this as one corridor replacing another, planning a weekend actually gets easier, because you're choosing between two genuinely different experiences rather than picking a winner.

Cedar Crossing and the rest of Evergreen Walk are still where you go when you already know what you want: a reliable Chipotle bowl, a Starbucks run before errands, Cold Stone with the kids, and soon a Sally's pizza night once it opens. Sullivan Avenue is where you go to try something that just opened, whether that's a bagel from Benson's on a Saturday morning, a coffee and a paperback at the Wicked Press, or tacos at Three Amigos once construction wraps.

If you want a reason to string both together into an actual day out this fall, South Windsor's Apple Fest is on the calendar for Saturday, October 3, at the John J. Mitchell Fairgrounds, per the festival's own site. Last year's event ran October 4 with the same format, a Saturday built around apple pie, cider, and the kind of vendor lineup that draws people out of their usual loop. It's a natural bookend to a Sullivan Avenue morning and a Cedar Crossing evening, and a good excuse to see both halves of the story in one day.

The Through-Line

The mistake isn't noticing that Sullivan Avenue has changed. It has, and the businesses opening there are real. The mistake is assuming that change came at Evergreen Walk's expense, when the mall corridor is in the middle of its own expansion at Cedar Crossing, with a name as recognizable as Sally's Apizza anchoring it. South Windsor isn't choosing between two ends of town. Both are growing at once, in different ways, and knowing how each is changing is the difference between an accurate mental map and an outdated one.

If you're new to town and still building that map, or you've lived here long enough to remember when the Geissler's plaza was just Geissler's, Shelby Muraski would love to hear what you're noticing out there. Let's Connect.