If you drove past the US 231 and I-20 interchange this spring, you saw it happen in real time: dirt work, then steel, then two Darden Restaurants signs going up within a week of each other. Olive Garden opened Monday, March 9, and LongHorn Steakhouse opened Monday, March 16. Mayor Bill Pruitt framed it as part of a bigger pattern.
"This new Olive Garden is another sign of the positive growth happening in Pell City."
That momentum is real, and it's easy to point to. But if you asked most Pell City residents where the town actually spends its Wednesday afternoons or Saturday mornings this month, the interstate exit wouldn't come up. That's happening two miles south, at the boat launch, on a patch of ground the city has been quietly building around for a decade.
Where the new money actually landed
The $10-million-a-year restaurant news is tied to a specific address, not a general "Pell City is growing" story. The project was valued at over $6 million and sits at the intersection of US Highway 231 and Hazelwood Drive, adjacent to the I-20 West ramp. Olive Garden landed at 2025 Veterans Pkwy and LongHorn at 2020 Veterans Drive, both inside a shopping center that opened in August 2023 alongside a run of national retailers.
That center, Pell City Square, didn't arrive alone. It broke ground in September 2022 and opened August 2023, leading the way for retailers including Rack Room Shoes, Old Navy, Ulta Beauty, America's Best Contacts & Eyeglasses, Ross Dress for Less, Hobby Lobby, PetSmart, Five Below, and TJ Maxx. If you've noticed the corridor near I-20 filling in fast over the past three years, this is why. It's the visible, photographed version of Pell City's growth, and it's the version out-of-towners see first.
It's also not where the town actually gathers.
The market that got too big for its old spot
The St. Clair County Farmers Market was already in its 16th year as of the 2025 season, which puts this year at its 17th, older than most of the retail names above combined. What's changed is where it happens. The market moved from the Avondale Mills walking track to Lakeside Park in 2024, when the old lot couldn't hold the crowd anymore, and its first day at the new spot drew lines for fresh produce right at the boat launch. It's filled with dozens of local and regional vendors every Wednesday from 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM at Lakeside Park, located near the boat launch at 2801 Stemley Bridge Rd, and the market runs weekly through the end of September. That leaves about eight more Wednesdays this year before it closes for the season.
The move matters more than it sounds. A market in its seventeenth year outgrowing its parking lot is a better read on local demand than any press release about a new shopping center, because nobody engineered it for a ribbon-cutting. It just got too popular for the space it had. And the fix wasn't to shrink it or relocate it near the highway retail. The city moved it to the lake, where kids ages 5 to 12 can still pick up "Veggie Bucks" from the Extension tent the way they have for years.
What's on the calendar before the leaves turn
Lakeside Park isn't just hosting produce stands. Over the next six weeks it's the address on nearly every event worth putting on a calendar.
| Event | Date | Location |
|---|---|---|
| St. Clair County Farmers Market | Wednesdays through late September | Lakeside Park, 2801 Stemley Bridge Rd |
| "Murder In Sin City" Murder Mystery Dinner | Aug 22, 2026 | The Venue on 20th, downtown |
| St. Clair County Sheriff's Foundation Bass Tournament | Aug 29, 2026 | Lakeside Park |
| Lakeside Motorfest | Sept 19, 2026 | Lakeside Park, 2801 Stemley Bridge Rd |
The Sheriff's Foundation Bass Tournament, benefiting the Alabama Sheriffs Youth Ranch, is set for Saturday, Aug. 29, starting at 5 a.m., and Lakeside Motorfest lands Saturday, Sept. 19. The murder mystery dinner is scheduled for Saturday, Aug. 22, at The Venue on 20th.
The Motorfest car show isn't a new idea for the park. Last September, it ran as part of a bigger day: Lakeside Live Musicfest, a free event organized by the Five16 Foundation running from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., featured homegrown talent including the Pell City High School band Sand Rock, The Leverton Brothers, and The WingNuts. Alongside the music, the day included a Motorfest car show, local vendors, and the "Battle of the Badges," where the Pell City Police and Fire Departments faced off in friendly competition. Whether this year's Motorfest folds back into a full musicfest day or stands alone, the pattern holds: when Pell City wants to throw a real community event, it goes to the same 65 acres by the water.
Downtown never left, it just got quieter
None of this means Cogswell Avenue emptied out. The downtown business district still includes specialty shops, professional offices, an art gallery, and loft apartments, and it functions on its own rhythm rather than competing with the highway retail for attention. A quieter afternoon downtown browsing shops, followed by checking what's on at a small venue like The Venue on 20th, is still a normal Pell City weekend move. For bigger productions, the Center for Education and Performing Arts hosts major concerts and theatrical productions a few blocks over.
Downtown's role isn't to be the newest thing in town. It's the steady baseline that doesn't need a groundbreaking ceremony to stay relevant.
The entertainment complex that beat the restaurant wave by six years
Here's a detail that gets lost in the "Pell City is booming" narrative: the town's biggest single entertainment draw predates almost everything on this list. Pell City PREMIERE LUX Cine, Bowl & Pizza Pub opened to the public on January 17, 2019, at 1200 Vaughan Lane, years before the Darden restaurants broke ground. It has seven wall-to-wall screens, and its Pizza Pub serves gourmet pizza, wings, hamburgers, and local craft beer on draft alongside a bowling alley and arcade under the same roof.
That timeline matters for how you read the current wave of development. Pell City wasn't waiting on Olive Garden to prove it could support family entertainment. It had already built a reason for Birmingham-area families to drive in years before the interstate corridor started filling up. The recent restaurant openings aren't the start of something. They're the latest layer on top of infrastructure the city had already put in place.
Why this matters if you live here
Zoom out and the timeline tells a consistent story. Back in 2015, projects like Premiere Cinemas and the Pell City Splash Pad were first coming into view, and over the following decade the city added 1,000 new homes, 1,800 new jobs, and invested more than $35 million into capital improvement initiatives. The Darden restaurants at the interstate are the most photographed chapter of that decade, but they're not the whole book. The farmers market moving to Lakeside Park, the Motorfest car show returning every September, the bass tournament pulling anglers to the same boat launch, the theater and murder mystery nights downtown: all of it points to a town whose actual social center of gravity has been sliding toward the water for years, while the headlines chase whatever chain just broke ground.
If you already live here, that's useful to know heading into fall. The market has about eight Wednesdays left this season. The bass tournament is roughly three weeks out. Motorfest is about six. None of it requires driving to the interstate.
If you're weighing whether Pell City still has room to grow into, the honest answer is that it's been doing exactly that for a decade, just not always where the signage points.
Want to talk through what a specific Pell City address, lot, or lakefront property is actually worth in today's market? Billy Brodie works this market daily and can walk you through it, no highway-exit hype required.
