"We have real Thai food, the real taste," Kamol Buaban said this spring, standing behind the counter of Nisha Thai Kitchen at 216 North Broadway. It's the kind of line an owner says when a restaurant opens anywhere, in any year. What makes it worth repeating now is what's moving forward a few blocks away, where permitting and design work are underway at the corner of North 29th Street and First Avenue North for a building type Billings hasn't attempted since 1984.
Downtown has run the restaurant-wave story before. A handful of openings, some local buzz, a couple of quiet closures a year later, and things settle back to where they started. Anyone who has lived here for a decade or two has watched that cycle enough times to shrug at another round of it. What's different about 2026 isn't the food. It's that four separate construction projects are moving forward downtown at the same time, which hasn't happened in this district in a long while. That's the part worth paying attention to if you already call this neighborhood home.
The Restaurant Wave, Named
As of this spring, at least nine businesses had opened or were preparing to open downtown since the start of 2026, and several of them were in the food and beverage category, according to reporting from April. Mehmet Casey, the Downtown Billings Association's development director, has said the variety matters as much as the count, because downtown serves food, retail, and everything in between at once.
Here's what's actually opened or is about to, by address, so you can find it without guessing:
- Nisha Thai Kitchen, 216 N. Broadway, in the former Imperial Thai space, run by Buaban and his daughter after the family relocated from Sydney.
- Phónomenal, expected at 2716 Third Ave. N. in the former Soup and Such spot, a Vietnamese kitchen from Kaela Chanhthavee and Quito Keutla, who moved home to Billings from Seattle.
- Pete's Meats, planned for 2917 Second Ave. N.
- Blush Boutique, relocated to 2816 Third Ave. N. in February.
- Divine Beauty Bar, moving into 138 N. 30th St.
- One More Throw Axe Throwing Lounge, now open on Montana Avenue, downtown's first ax-throwing venue.
- Altered Ego, an alternative retail shop that recently opened on First Avenue North.
Chanhthavee and Keutla identified the same gap Buaban did, just for a different cuisine. "We saw the opportunity when it comes to food," Chanhthavee said of the couple's decision to bring Vietnamese staples to a downtown that hadn't had a dedicated pho kitchen before.
None of this is unusual for a downtown in a growth year. What's unusual is what's happening around these storefronts while the openings continue.
What's Actually Rising Behind Them
Four projects are moving forward downtown at the same time this year: the AC Marriott Hotel, the Old Billings Hardware Building, the Masonic Temple, and the Futurity Tower, according to Billings Gazette reporting from January 2026. Downtown has seen individual buildings go up before. Four at once is a different scale of activity.
The Old Billings Hardware Building at 2802 Montana Avenue sat mostly empty for close to 30 years before it received Tax Increment Financing approval from the Billings City Council, a signal the city didn't think the building would get redeveloped without that push. Construction on converting the basement and first floor into retail and restaurant space, with apartments above, was reported in January to be starting that spring.
The Masonic Temple redevelopment is the least defined of the four. Environmental studies and design work were underway as of the January Gazette report, which puts it on a watch list rather than a calendar.
The Futurity Tower is the one worth slowing down for. Planned for the former Yesteryears Antique Mall site at North 29th and First Avenue North, High Plains Architects describes it as a 12-story, 140-foot mixed-use building with two floors of retail, restaurant, and office space topped by 10 floors of one and two-bedroom apartments, 120 units total. When it's finished, it will be the first new high-rise built in Montana since 1984. Developer Randy Hafer has said publicly the target tenant isn't a luxury renter, which matters for how the building is likely to function inside a downtown that's still figuring out its residential mix.
That last point is the piece the restaurant headlines skip. A dozen new food and retail spots tell you people want to be downtown on a given evening. A 120-unit apartment tower tells you someone is betting people want to live there full time, at a scale downtown hasn't tested in over four decades.
What This Means on a Tuesday
Construction at this scale doesn't stay theoretical. Second Avenue North, from the Park 3 parking garage east to North 27th Street, is closed for much of the construction process, according to Billings Gazette reporting from March. If you park downtown regularly, that's a detour you're probably already making, or about to start making.
This is the part of the story that a restaurant roundup won't tell you, and it's the part that actually changes your week. New patios and new pho are additions to a routine you already have. A closed block near the parking garage you've used for years is a subtraction, at least until the work finishes.
The Weekend Right in Front of You
None of this is abstract or seasons away. It's this week.
- Thursday, August 6: The Yellowstone Art Museum hosts an artist's talk with Rebecca Hutchinson in the Murdock Gallery, with a reception to follow in the Montana gallery. Hutchinson's exhibition, Embedded in the Overlap, is built from locally sourced materials and centers on the social and cultural history of Billings itself, which makes the timing feel less like coincidence and more like the museum leaning into the same moment downtown is having.
- Friday, August 7: Chalk on the Walk and Summer Stroll both land on the 2026 signature event calendar for this date, alongside ArtWalk, which is celebrating its 25th season this year, running its usual 5 to 9 p.m. window. Extended store hours, sidewalk chalk art, and gallery stops all overlap on the same evening, the way they do every first Friday, but this one closes out the summer season.
Yellowstone Art Museum admission is free for anyone who lives in Yellowstone County, which is worth remembering if you've been meaning to walk through and haven't yet. Rock Creek Coffee Roasters, which has been roasting downtown since 2004, and Big Dipper Ice Cream at the corner of the historic Stapleton Building are both the kind of fixtures that were downtown long before this year's wave and will likely still be there after it settles.
After the Patios Close
Summer Stroll is billed as the evening that celebrates the final month of patio season, and the district has nearly 20 patios that open each year once the weather turns. When those close down, downtown doesn't go quiet. HarvestFest, now in its 22nd year, is scheduled for Saturday, October 10, and the signature event calendar has stops planned into the holiday season after that.
The honest read on 2026 is that the restaurants are the part you can see and taste, which is exactly why they get the headlines. The four buildings under construction are slower, less photogenic, and easier to ignore until the scaffolding comes down. But a 12-story apartment tower and a 30-year-vacant hardware building getting TIF financing in the same year as a Thai kitchen and a Vietnamese kitchen opening blocks apart is a different kind of signal than either one alone. It suggests the people betting on downtown right now aren't just betting on a good dinner. They're betting on people actually living there.
Whether that bet pays off is something only the next year or two will show. For now, the parking detour on Second Avenue North and the design work moving forward at 29th and First are both worth watching the same way you'd watch a new restaurant open. They're telling you something about where this neighborhood is headed, even if neither one comes with a punch card.
If you're curious how downtown's growth is showing up in what property here is actually worth, that's a conversation The Premier Group follows closely, alongside the rest of Billings and the surrounding Montana communities we work in every day.
