A year ago, walking through downtown Powell on a Tuesday night meant mostly empty sidewalks and a few porch lights on at Nocterra Brewing Co. The weekend crowd came Thursday through Sunday, spent money, and went home. Monday through Wednesday, the storefronts on Liberty and Olentangy stayed lit but quiet.
That gap just closed, and it didn't close because a new restaurant opened. It closed because Powell City Council voted to let it.
The Vote Behind the Change
On May 19, 2026, council unanimously expanded the city's Designated Outdoor Refreshment Area, known locally as the DORA, so it now runs every day of the week from 11 a.m. to midnight. Before that vote, the DORA, a 136-acre stretch of the downtown core where you can carry a drink between participating bars and restaurants, only operated Thursday through Sunday. The change took effect the moment council gaveled out of that meeting.
The reasoning, laid out by Powell's economic development administrator during the council discussion, was blunt about the math the city was leaving on the table. Millions of people drive past or near downtown Powell every year on their way to the Columbus Zoo, to Polaris, or to Alum Creek, and almost none of that traffic used to touch downtown on a Monday or Tuesday. Extending the DORA to seven days was a direct attempt to convert some of that drive-by volume into weekday foot traffic instead of leaving it parked entirely on weekends.
If you live in Powell, this is the detail worth knowing: the busier weeknights you may have noticed aren't a coincidence of new businesses timing their grand openings well. They're downstream of a specific policy change that made weeknight foot traffic worth chasing in the first place.
What Moved Into the Extra Hours
The timing lines up in an interesting order. Powell's first rooftop bar, Lani Rooftop Lounge, opened to the public on April 9, 2026, on the third floor of COhatch's new building on East Olentangy Street, a few weeks before the council vote. The 14,000-square-foot COhatch development includes coworking space and event rooms, but Lani is the part residents actually walk into: a main dining room, an outdoor patio, and a sky room serving small plates that pull from Japanese, French, and Italian cooking, plus panoramic views over downtown that didn't exist from any other bar in Powell.
So the demand signal was already there before the ordinance caught up to it. Council's vote in May gave a bar like Lani, and every restaurant around it, a reason to treat Tuesday the same way they'd treat Saturday.
More has followed since. Khaab Indian Kitchen & Bar, which already runs a location in Bexley, announced plans this year to open a second spot in Powell, bringing traditional recipes and a cocktail program to a growing downtown crowd. And this month, Cava opened its newest central Ohio location at 9711 Sawmill Parkway, just outside the downtown core, with hours running 10:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily and a projected staff of 25 to 40 people. A fast-casual chain doesn't plant a location like that unless it expects steady traffic across the whole week, not just a weekend rush.
Put those three together and you get a small, legible story: a rooftop bar bet on weeknight demand, the city changed the rule to support it, and a national chain showed up because the bet had already started paying off.
A Week That Actually Has Seven Days Now
For residents, the practical change shows up less in any single opening and more in what's now possible on an ordinary weeknight. A short loop through downtown can now include:
- Nocterra Brewing Co., 41 Depot St., housed in the town's old train depot, with a taproom and beer garden that's open Monday through Wednesday from 2 to 10 p.m., not just late in the week.
- Prohibition Gastro Lounge, a speakeasy-style spot that's part of the same DORA loop.
- Huli Huli Tiki Lounge, an island-themed bar within walking distance.
- Local Roots, known for its farm-to-table patio, another stop on the same stretch.
None of these are new businesses. What's new is that the ordinance now lets you move a drink between them on a Wednesday the same way you always could on a Saturday.
The weekly rhythm around them has filled in too. Nocterra's Run Club meets every Thursday at 6:15 p.m. in partnership with Columbus Running Company, welcoming all paces before the group heads back to the taproom or beer garden. The Saturday farmers market at 240 North Liberty Street runs 9 a.m. to noon through October 3, with produce, flowers, and baked goods from local vendors. And free Movie Nights on the Green at the Village Green Amphitheater, backed by sponsors including Niehaus Insurance and the Powell Development Corporation, give families a reason to bring lawn chairs downtown on nights that used to be reserved for staying home.
What's Actually Happening Right Now
This week, Ill Mannered Brewing Company, one of the original participants in Powell's DORA when it launched in 2019, is running its 11-year anniversary celebration, kicking off at its Powell taproom before moving to its Marysville location the following day. It's a small example of how much of downtown's current calendar comes from businesses that have been here for years, now operating inside a set of rules that finally match how busy they've become.
August alone has carried a wider mix of programming than downtown Powell used to see in a typical month. The Larry Coolidge Cruise In brought classic cars to downtown on August 16, benefiting the Powell-Liberty Historical Society and the Powell Sertoma Club. The Columbus Zoo's Lantern Festival drew evening crowds on August 20. None of that required the DORA to function, but all of it now sits inside a downtown that's open for business every night of the week instead of half of it.
Why This Matters If You Already Live Here
The easy version of this story is "downtown Powell got more restaurants." The more accurate version is that the city rewrote a rule most residents will never read, and that rule change is the reason a Tuesday dinner downtown now feels normal instead of like an event. Businesses like Lani Rooftop Lounge bet on that shift before it was official. Cava is betting on it now. The next round of announcements, including Khaab's, will land inside a downtown that's built to hold them seven days a week instead of four.
If you've noticed downtown Powell feels different this year, it's not your imagination and it's not just the new signage. It's a policy change from May 19 finally catching up to demand that was already there, and the calendar filling in behind it.
Keys + Company pays attention to these kinds of shifts because they're the same texture that shapes how a neighborhood actually lives day to day, not just how it looks on a listing sheet. If you're curious what's changing in your corner of Powell, or in any of the other Central Ohio suburbs we follow closely, Keys + Company is always happy to talk it through. And if you're weighing what your own Powell home might be worth in a downtown that's clearly gaining momentum, request your free instant home valuation whenever you're ready.
