Drive US 42 south from the Florence Y and you used to know exactly where the good dinners ended. Somewhere near the Boone County line, restaurant options thinned to a handful of familiar signs, and the honest answer to "where should we eat" was still "let's just go to Cincinnati." That answer got harder to defend in July of last year, and it stops being true entirely at the end of this June.
The thesis is small but the practical effect is not. Union has quietly stitched together enough restaurants, weekly programming, and fall festivals inside its own limits that a resident can plan six weekends in a row without leaving 41091. Below is what's actually open, what's opening, and what to hold on the calendar.
Bella Vita, and why Kevin Preston built it
The clearest signal of the shift is the Italian restaurant going into the old Farmstand building. Bella Vita Ristorante is set to open at 9914 Old Union Road at the end of June, moving into a space that formerly housed the Farmstand Market and Cafe, which closed in December after eight years of business. The owners are three local partners: Kevin Preston, John Daugherty and Rob Trump.
Preston's reasoning is the reasoning of every long-time Union resident who has ever picked up the phone at 6:30 on a Friday and given up:
"The common theme that always came up is, we'd like to have places where you don't have to drive to Florence, you don't have to drive to Cincinnati," said Union City Commissioner John Mefford.
Bella Vita is planning dinner service Wednesdays through Saturdays, and brunch with all-day service on Sundays. The building holds 74 people, though actual seating will be lower, and the restaurant will add an outdoor patio with lights and greenery. The chef is local and Italian, the food is described as authentic, and the bar top was the last piece the owners were waiting on before opening.
That last detail is the kind of thing residents actually want to know. A restaurant that finishes construction the week it opens tends to have a rough first month. A restaurant that has been waiting on one piece of stone for weeks is one that plans to serve you a decent meal on night one.
What's actually open at Union Promenade
The other half of the story is the 62-acre mixed-use project on US 42 that a lot of residents still describe as "the construction site by Cincinnati Children's." That description is out of date. Cincinnati Children's, United Dairy Farmers, Elite MedSpa, Glamour Nails, Schlotzsky's Deli and Cinnabon Bakery, Tropical Smoothie, Ace of Fades, Wing Stop, McAlister's Deli, Chick-fil-A, El Asadero Bar and Grill, HotWorx, The Strip butcher, Fifth Third Bank, Pure Barre, Club Pilates, Fairway Room and Lounge, By Gollys, The Works Pizza Co., Luxe Suites, Taco Mama, and Teriyaki Madness are all now open, per the city's own promenade page.
For weeknight planning, three groupings matter more than the full list:
- Sit-down dinner with a drink. The Fairway Room and Lounge, El Asadero Bar and Grill, and Taco Mama cover most Tuesday-through-Thursday needs without a reservation. Once Bella Vita opens, that shortlist gets a fourth entry with a real wine list.
- Fast, kid-viable. Chick-fil-A, Wing Stop, Tropical Smoothie, Teriyaki Madness, and McAlister's Deli. This is the drop-off-a-carpool set.
- Groceries and small-batch stops. The Strip Quality Meats for a weekend cut of beef, By Gollys and The Works Pizza Co. for a pickup, and United Dairy Farmers for the after-dinner run.
The other tenants are worth naming because they change what a Saturday morning looks like. Boomtown Biscuits & Whiskey and La Torta Loca have both landed on Yelp's Union area shortlist, and neither existed here two years ago. The reviews are the kind that describe an actual meal rather than a category. One recent Union Promenade review noted a manager visibly working the counter and someone checking on tables, which is the kind of small tell that says a place is being run by someone who cares.
If you have not been to the Promenade since the initial soft opens in July of last year, the physical scale of what's now leased is worth a walk. KW Commercial is offering 93,700 square feet of lease space in what it describes as Union's planned entertainment district, and a full lineup of upper-scale restaurants and entertainment venues is already secured. Translation: the tenants above are not the finished picture. They are the first two-thirds.
Wednesday nights belong to the Arboretum
The Union restaurant conversation tends to eat all the oxygen. It shouldn't. The most consistently good use of a Union summer week is free and takes place a five-minute drive from most of the city.
The Boone County Arboretum sits just outside Union, roughly 25 minutes southwest of downtown Cincinnati, is open daily from 7:30 a.m. to dusk, and charges nothing for admission or parking. It covers 121 acres, holds the distinction of being the nation's first arboretum inside an active recreation park, is connected by a two-plus-mile multi-use trail, and is accredited at Level IV by the ArbNet Accreditation Program, the highest tier.
Three programs are worth building into a normal week through the rest of summer:
- Yoga in the Arboretum. Wednesday evenings, 7:00 to 8:00 p.m., running through the summer. Registration required.
- Helping Hands garden mornings. Tuesday mornings from 9:00 to 11:30 a.m., no experience needed. A good option for retirees, new residents wanting to meet people, or anyone with a Tuesday off.
- Arts in the Arboretum. Thursday, July 30, from 10:00 to 11:00 a.m., described as artful play among the trees and flowers. Aimed at kids.
For the 21-and-over calendar, the Arboretum's Bourbon & Blooms fundraiser at Karrikin Spirits includes a featured presentation by Dr. Harmonie Bettenhausen from the James B. Beam Institute on the plants that shape Kentucky bourbon. Registration includes catered hors d'oeuvres and one drink ticket, and the first 150 people to register also receive a potted oak tree. A potted oak as a party favor is the sort of Boone County detail that makes the point on its own.
Two dates to hold for fall
Two Union events anchor the shoulder-season calendar, and both fill quickly with people who found out about them a year late.
Timothy Oktoberfest, Union, September 19. Listed on the 2026 Kentucky festival calendar for that Saturday.
Bourbon in the Bluegrass, Union, October 3. This is the one to plan around. The 5th annual City of Union festival takes place at Farm Haven and features bourbon tastings, live music, food vendors, hay rides, and cabin tours. Farm Haven is the kind of venue that Cincinnati readers pay to visit on Instagram. Union residents live 15 minutes away.
Farther afield but Union-adjacent, the Boone County Fair and Horse Show ran June 22–27 in Burlington, so residents who missed it this year have a July note to make for 2027. The fairgrounds sit at 5819 Idlewild Road, roughly 15 minutes north.
A resident's late-August week, mapped
Put the pieces together and a week in Union looks different from the one most residents planned three summers ago. A sample:
- Tuesday morning. Coffee, then Helping Hands at the Arboretum. Home by lunch.
- Wednesday evening. Yoga in the Arboretum at 7:00. Dinner after at The Fairway Room or, once open, Bella Vita.
- Thursday night. Curbside pickup from The Works Pizza Co. or Boomtown Biscuits & Whiskey. Eat in the yard.
- Friday. Dinner at El Asadero or Taco Mama with the kids. Ice cream at UDF on the way home.
- Saturday morning. A cut of beef from The Strip Quality Meats for the grill. A walk on the Arboretum's two-mile loop before it gets hot.
- Sunday. Brunch at Bella Vita after it opens, or a coffee-and-drive to whatever fall festival landed that weekend.
Nothing on that list is aspirational. Every business named is either open now or opens this month. Every event listed is on a public 2026 calendar. The point of the exercise is not that Union has become Over-the-Rhine. It hasn't and it shouldn't. The point is that the specific complaint that used to define living out here — that a good meal or a real Saturday required an interstate — no longer holds.
The City of Union's own tagline puts it plainly: as Union grows, one thing will never change, which is the commitment to keeping it the best small town in which to live. The trick residents are still catching up to is that "small town" and "you have somewhere to be tonight" have finally stopped being opposites here.
If your Union home has appreciated meaningfully as the Promenade filled in and you're curious what the block is worth today, or you're weighing a move within the 41091 and want a candid read on which streets are trading fastest, reach out to Martha Larsen. Call or Text Martha — Schedule Your Free Consultation.
