When Amy Wilson and her husband bought the old Trolley Barn on White Street in 1996, they weren't buying a going concern. They were buying a building that had sat empty for years, filled with the leftovers of a failed auto parts store and, by her own count, home to roughly 100 stray cats. She later explained the purchase simply: "We used to walk the downtown and think, 'Frankfort needs a place like this.'"
Thirty years later, that place exists, and this fall it's doing more work than usual. Eight different small businesses now share the same century-old roof, while a separate wave of new openings, a breakfast spot, two coffee concepts, and a full-service restaurant, has landed on the arterial roads at the edge of town instead. If you've only been tracking one of those two lists, you've only seen half of what actually opened in Frankfort this year.
One Roof, Eight Different Businesses
The Trolley Barn earned its name honestly. Trolley tracks ran down the middle of Kansas Street from 1908 to 1922, and the barn stored the cars. After the interurban line folded, Frankfort businessman Art Bauch sold tractors out of the building, then cars, and by the 1950s Cooper-Show Ford ran a dealership there for three decades. By the time the Wilsons bought it in 1996, none of that history was visible under the mess they inherited.
What's inside the building now looks nothing like a car dealership and nothing like a single-tenant retail space either. Based on current business listings for the address, the Trolley Barn today holds:
- Down Home Guitars, a music retailer
- Express Med Spa
- Cultivate Community Table
- Elevated Barbers
- The Well, a yoga studio
- Bridesmaids Social
- Aleck Pain to Performance, a pain and performance practice
- Avocado Theory, an avocado-focused restaurant with locations in Tinley Park, Naperville, Lincolnshire, and Wheaton, which received Village Board approval this summer and is targeting a November 1 opening
That's a guitar shop, a med spa, a yoga studio, a barbershop, a bridal event space, a physical therapy practice, and a restaurant, all inside one building that started life storing rail cars. A commercial listing for one of the building's last available spaces made the pitch to prospective tenants directly, promising the space could be "up and running before award winning Frankfort Fall Festival." The festival wasn't mentioned as a nice bonus. It was the deadline.
The Second Wave Skipped Downtown Entirely
Nowhere near White Street, a different kind of opening has been moving through the Village Board's meeting minutes all year, and none of it is walkable from the Trolley Barn.
Waffles Kafe is stepping into the space long occupied by Lumes Pancake House after its owners retired, with plans to open daily from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Solyne Coffee received a special use permit for a unit on Frankfort Square Road. Dutch Bros Coffee got Village approval for a drive-thru at 20900 S. La Grange Road, inside the Market Street West retail development, in what would be one of the chain's first Chicago-area locations. And Coro Restaurant, a full-service concept with liquor sales, is moving into the former Simply Smokin space on Lincoln Highway, though the Board denied its request for outdoor seating and a drive-up window.
Four openings, four different arterial roads, and not one of them within an easy stroll of the historic core.
The Trail Explains the Split
The reason these two waves land in such different places isn't random. It's geography, and Frankfort has one piece of infrastructure that draws the line better than any zoning map.
The Old Plank Road Trail is a paved rail-trail running roughly 22 miles from Joliet to Chicago Heights, threading through New Lenox, Frankfort, Matteson, Richton Park, and Park Forest along the way. TrailLink's route guide describes Frankfort as the trail's "physical and spiritual center," noting that riders pass under an archway as they enter town and then travel straight through the historic downtown, past the shops and restaurants that line it. The Trolley Barn sits inside that stretch. Frankfort Square Road, La Grange Road, and Lincoln Highway do not.
That's the practical difference between the two lists above. Everything clustering into the Trolley Barn is something a resident can walk to on the same afternoon they're already downtown for coffee or a haircut. Everything opening on the arterials is something you drive to on purpose, because it's a destination trip rather than a stop along a walk you were already taking.
The Festival Is a Deadline, Not Just a Weekend
The Frankfort Fall Festival wrapped up Labor Day weekend, running Saturday through Monday, September 5 through 7. The Chamber of Commerce describes it as a nationally recognized arts and crafts fair, and it was ranked No. 2 in Sunshine Artist Magazine's Top 200 Best list for 2024, an honor announced in 2025. This year's parade, held Sunday afternoon, was led by Grand Marshal Curtis Pascarella, president of Phillips Chevrolet, recognized for the dealership's decades as one of Frankfort's longest-standing businesses.
For most residents, the festival is a long weekend of arts booths, a parade, and carnival rides on Kansas and White Streets. For anyone leasing space in the Trolley Barn, it's apparently something closer to a soft-opening deadline. The building's owner marketed at least one vacancy specifically around getting a tenant ready before the crowds arrived, which suggests this year's festival wasn't just entertainment for the businesses inside that building. It was the target date.
The Next Date on the Calendar Only Covers Half the Story
If you're looking for the next occasion to see what's changed downtown, the Chamber has one on the books: the 14th Annual Wine & Ale Walk returns to Breidert Green on September 27, with check-in running from 1:30 to 3 p.m. and live entertainment on the Green's stage through the afternoon. The event's own description is specific about what it covers, inviting guests to "stroll around the participating downtown businesses" for samples and bites.
That phrase, participating downtown businesses, is the whole split in miniature. The Wine & Ale Walk will showcase whatever's new and walkable this fall, which likely means a look inside the Trolley Barn's newest tenants. It won't send anyone toward Waffles Kafe on the old Lumes site, or the Dutch Bros drive-thru taking shape on La Grange Road, or Coro Restaurant settling into the old Simply Smokin space on Lincoln Highway. Those openings are real, they're dated, and they're staffed and permitted. They're just not on the walk.
Frankfort's downtown didn't get bigger this year so much as it got busier in one specific building, while the rest of the town's new business energy found room to grow along roads that were never built for foot traffic in the first place. Both are worth knowing about if you live here. Only one of them shows up if you only follow the festival calendar.
If you're weighing a move to Frankfort or anywhere else in the southwest suburbs and want a read on what a neighborhood is actually doing beyond the headline events, The Chris Demos Group has spent two decades tracking these towns block by block. Call Chris.
