On September 25 and 26, the Ozark Mill throws itself a birthday party. Five years since the historic gristmill on the Finley River reopened as the centerpiece of Finley Farms, the property is marking the occasion with two days of live music, local makers, and the kind of buzz that made a converted 1833 mill into the reason people now drive to Ozark on purpose instead of just passing through on Highway 65.
On the other side of town, a 40-acre development called Ozark Marketplace is still filling in, lot by lot, more than a year after ground broke on what used to be farmland. One tenant just opened. Another is close. A marquee tenant announced back in 2025 still doesn't have a confirmed address.
That gap is the story. Ozark's identity as a place worth visiting has moved faster than its identity as a place with everyday conveniences. If you live here, it's worth knowing which half of town is actually finished and which half is still under construction, because they're running on very different clocks.
Five years since the mill got its second life
The Ozark Mill has been standing on the Finley River since 1833, but its current chapter started in September 2021, when the Morris family reopened it as the anchor of Finley Farms. The anniversary festival on September 25 and 26 marks that reopening, not the building's age, and it's structured as a two-day event with live music, local vendors, and family-friendly programming rather than a single evening affair.
The Mill isn't Finley Farms' only draw. The Garrison, the underground speakeasy on the lower level named for Howard Garrison and modeled on the old Riverside Inn, has become the kind of reservation-only spot locals mention when out-of-town family visits. The Workshop, the property's coffee shop and makerspace, has been running since 2019. Together they turned a stretch of riverfront that used to be known mainly as a stop for "throwed rolls" on the drive south into a cluster of restaurants people specifically plan an evening around.
That momentum pulled other openings in behind it. Raku Hibachi Sushi & Ramen opened in Ozark in August 2025, brought by cousins Kukuh Bayu Han Prakoso and Raven Al Rasya, whose family also runs Kiko Hibachi & Sushi Express in Bolivar. Prakoso has talked about wanting the restaurant to feel like a bigger city despite Ozark's small-town scale, and a year later, the fact that a hibachi and ramen concept chose Ozark at all, rather than Springfield proper, still says something about how much dining traffic this town generates on its own.
If you've been going to the Ozark Farmers Market on Thursday evenings at Finley River Park, note that this season runs through September 24, the Thursday just before the Mill's anniversary weekend. That leaves four more Thursday markets before the schedule shifts into fall festival territory.
The marketplace is still filling in, one lot at a time
Ozark Marketplace tells a different story, and it's worth laying out in order because the pace has been uneven enough that it's easy to lose track of what's actually open.
| Business | Status | Timing |
|---|---|---|
| Aldi | Open | Grand opening December 11, 2025 |
| Plaza Tire Service | Open | Opened May 2026 |
| Casey's | Open | Opened in recent months, per an August 2026 update |
| McDonald's | Under construction | Described as nearing completion in August 2026 |
| Waffle House | Not yet confirmed | Still under city review for one of two possible sites as of March 2026 |
The Aldi was the development's first real milestone and the one residents had been asking for the longest. One nearby resident, Codey Jones, told a local television reporter he was looking forward to the convenience but also flagged a real tradeoff: the new traffic cutting through what used to be a quiet residential stretch behind the site. That's the kind of detail that doesn't show up in a press release about job creation, but it's the one people who actually live near the development notice first.
Small business owners near the Marketplace have mixed feelings that lean positive. Hunter Thomas, who runs Ozarks Traditional Barber Shop nearby, said the Aldi arrival was a big deal for his own household and expects more foot traffic in the area to help his shop too, reasoning that more people in town simply means more haircuts.
What's notable is the gap between announcement and delivery. Dutch Bros Coffee was part of the original 2025 conversations around the development but hadn't confirmed a location as of the most recent reporting, and it doesn't appear on the city's project tracker at all. Waffle House has been discussed since 2025 as a marquee tenant, with talk of two locations, one inside the Marketplace and one on the north side of town, but as of March 2026 the city was still reviewing plans and no groundbreaking had been reported since. The August 2026 update on the development's progress didn't mention Waffle House at all, which suggests it's still sitting in the pipeline rather than moving toward an opening date.
None of this makes Ozark Marketplace a failure. Aldi, Plaza Tire, and Casey's are real, open, functioning businesses that didn't exist here two years ago. But if you've been planning your errands around a Waffle House or a Dutch Bros that was announced with confidence in 2025, the honest answer right now is that neither has broken ground in any way that's been publicly confirmed.
What the gap actually means
The reason Finley Farms feels finished and Ozark Marketplace feels perpetually half-built comes down to who's building each one and what they're building it for.
Finley Farms is a single family's long-term project. The Morris family bought the mill in 1993 and has been developing the property in phases ever since, on a timeline they control, adding one attraction at a time when it's ready rather than announcing a slate of tenants and waiting on each one to sign a lease. A restaurant, a speakeasy, a coffee shop, and now a five-year anniversary festival can all happen on that kind of schedule without anyone outside the family needing to sign off first.
Ozark Marketplace runs on a completely different mechanism. It depends on national chains each running their own site selection, permitting, and construction timeline in parallel, on land the developer has to assemble and improve before any of them can build. Aldi moved fast because Aldi wanted this market badly enough to prioritize it. Waffle House, evidently, hasn't made that same call yet, or is still working through which of two sites makes more sense for its own internal math. That's not a failure of the development. It's just a reminder that a "the whole shopping center is basically done" impression, common when one or two big names open, can be well ahead of the actual tenant list.
For anyone living in Ozark right now, the practical takeaway is simple. The Mill's anniversary weekend on September 25 and 26 is real and happening on schedule. The Farmers Market has four more Thursdays before its season wraps on September 24. Raku is open now, tonight, if you want ramen. But if your fall plans assumed a finished Marketplace with a Waffle House or a Dutch Bros already running, hold off. That part of town is still catching up to the version of itself that got announced.
Ozark's fall calendar doesn't stop at the Mill and the Marketplace either. The Ozark Fall Farmfest returns to the Ozark Empire Fairgrounds October 2 through 4 for its 47th year, the region's largest agricultural show with more than 1,200 exhibits and over 600 head of livestock. The same weekend brings the Ozark Fall Arts and Crafts Show, and in November the Ozark Craft Festival takes over the Ozark Community Center on November 13 and 14. Between the anniversary weekend, the farm show, and the craft festival, there's more reason than usual to stick close to home this fall, even before the Marketplace catches up.
Ozark's two growth stories, the dining scene that keeps adding names people recognize and the retail corridor still waiting on some of its own, are both part of what makes this town worth paying attention to right now. One moves at the speed of a family with a long view. The other moves at the speed of national chains deciding, one at a time, whether Ozark is worth the paperwork.
If you're watching this town change and wondering what it means for property values, timing, or just where to buy your next house near all of it, Chad Jones Realty knows these streets well enough to tell you which developments are worth waiting on. Reach out for a free home valuation and personalized consultation whenever you're ready to talk specifics.
