"We were working with two tables at our old space," Laura Young told Columbus Monthly before Bakes by Lo opened its first standalone storefront on Sept. 12. "Now we have four people working at the same time and sometimes, we'll stop and look up and say, 'Look at all this space!'"
The new space is at 4045 Main St., inside a building most longtime Hilliard residents still think of as Ketchum's Garage. A cookie bakery in an old car garage makes a nice story. It also turns out to be the first finished piece of something bigger. Three older buildings on Old Hilliard's Main Street are being turned into places to eat, and the same local developer, Andy Warnock, is involved in all three. Bakes by Lo got there first, so for now Main Street's change starts at 9 a.m.
A Chevrolet Garage That Now Has a Patio
The building at 4045 Main St. spent decades as a Chevrolet dealership and later an automotive service center. When the garage closed because its owner retired, Warnock's company, The Westwood Collective, bought the property. It chose to renovate the building instead of demolishing it.
Westwood split the building into two tenant spaces. Bakes by Lo has one half. Cyclical Nature Bicycles, currently at 4566 Cemetery Road, is set to move into the other. The bike shop has posted that it is "moving to a brand-new location right in the heart of downtown Hilliard." It hasn't announced a reopening date, and its website still lists the Cemetery Road address. If you're planning a tune-up, call the Cemetery Road shop before you head downtown.
The outside of the building got public help. The Hilliard Development Corporation gave the project a combined $70,000 grant for exterior concrete, paint, artificial turf, lighting, signage, bike racks, landscaping and outdoor furniture. Angela Zody, Hilliard's downtown manager, said in a January city announcement that the project supports local entrepreneurs while keeping the character of downtown Hilliard. The bike racks make sense with a bike shop moving in next door.
Inside, the size difference is easy to see. Bakes by Lo started in 2020 in a stall of about 400 square feet inside Center Street Market. The new storefront is 1,600 square feet, about four times that. Roughly 1,200 square feet is kitchen, and the rest is indoor seating plus a small patio. The business had outgrown the stall so fast that by 2024 it was sharing a kiosk with Coffee Connections just to get more room.
That partnership carried over to the new space. The shop now serves coffee made with Coffee Connections beans, alongside the custom cookies and cakes it's known for. Young plans to add pastries, croissants and kolaches, and eventually wholesale and mail-order shipping. She got her start at a farmer's market in 2019, where the owners of Crooked Can Brewing Company saw her work and invited her to open a stall when Center Street Market launched the next year.
Warnock Is Involved in All Three Buildings
The garage is one of three Main Street buildings Warnock is involved with, and each one is keeping an old structure for a new restaurant.
Two doors down the street's history, 3987 Main St. was most recently Legacy Smokehouse, which closed in May after nine years. Andy Warnock and his wife, Ashley, own the building. It started as a house and later held Bookphil, a rare bookstore that stayed for 45 years. Harvest Pizzeria plans to move in. It will be the wood-fired pizza brand's sixth location, after German Village, Clintonville, Dublin, Bexley and Granville.
The third is the former Chase bank at 4056 E. Main St. In June, the Hilliard Development Corporation signed a development agreement with The Westwood Collective to buy and redevelop the property. The plan keeps the original bank building for a sit-down Italian restaurant. A new building will go up on the parking lot next door, with dining and retail on the ground floor and a limited number of apartments upstairs. In August, the owners of Plain City's Clocktower Kitchen & Bar named the restaurant Lira Italian Kitchen.
| Address | What it used to be | What's planned | Status as of early October 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4045 Main St. | Ketchum's Garage, a Chevrolet dealership and later an auto service center | Bakes by Lo and Cyclical Nature Bicycles | Bakes by Lo opened Sept. 12. The bike shop hasn't announced a reopening date |
| 3987 Main St. | A house, then Bookphil, then Legacy Smokehouse | Harvest Pizzeria | No opening date announced as of June |
| 4056 E. Main St. | Chase bank | Lira Italian Kitchen, plus a new mixed-use building next door | Targeting early 2028 |
The opening dates are spread across years. The bank project won't be finished until 2028, Harvest hasn't said when it will open, and the bike shop's move is still in progress. Right now, Bakes by Lo is the only part of this plan you can walk into, and its hours set the pattern for downtown.
Where 9 a.m. on Main Street Fits in a Hilliard Morning
Bakes by Lo is open 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. That's a late-morning and afternoon schedule, and it opens about three hours after Hilliard's other new morning spots.
For an earlier start, the new option inside the city is Bagels & Jam Co. at 4465 Cemetery Rd. It soft-opened July 16 as Hilliard's first dedicated East Coast-style bagel shop. Co-owner Sunny Muheisen grew up in New Jersey, where her family owned Muheisen's Bagel & Deli. She runs the Hilliard shop with her father-in-law, Abdul Jamhour, a pastry chef with more than 30 years of experience. The name comes from shortening "Jamhour" to "Jam." "To get true New York/New Jersey style bagels, the water plays a key role," Muheisen told the Columbus Dispatch. She said it took trial and error to get there. Besides bagels, the menu has rugelach, sandwiches, salads, wraps and omelettes.
Just outside the city, Paris Baguette opened Aug. 20 at 5139 Raglan St. in the Lawrence Square development, in the Tuttle West area between Hilliard and Dublin.
Here's how the three line up:
- 6 a.m. Paris Baguette opens every day and stays open until 9 p.m.
- 6 or 6:30 a.m. Bagels & Jam Co. is open daily. Its hours were 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. at opening, but the shop's Instagram, @bagels.jam_columbus, has since posted 6:30 a.m. to 2 p.m., so check before you go.
- 9 a.m. Bakes by Lo opens on Main Street, Tuesday through Sunday.
The two early openers are about pre-work coffee and breakfast to go. The Main Street storefront, with its seating and small patio, is built for a slower weekend stop. That's also the first thing Warnock's buildings have added to downtown.
Two Dates That Bring the Crowd to Main Street
Two events on the city's calendar will bring more people than usual past 4045 Main St. this season.
The first is the Old Hilliard Halloween Haunt on Saturday, Oct. 24, from 9 to 11 a.m., along Main Street and at Hilliard's Station Park. It's free, it happens rain or shine, and Destination Hilliard organizes it. Kids in costume trick-or-treat at participating businesses, and the park has a Haunted Hip Hop routine by Columbus DanceArts Academy, live music by Mr. E and balloon twisting. If the weather turns unsafe, cancellations will be posted on social media. The Haunt starts at 9, the same time Bakes by Lo opens on a Saturday.
If you want to make a full morning of it, the Franklin County Dog Shelter & Adoption Center at 4340 Tamarack Blvd. in Columbus hosts Trick or Treat with the Pups from 10 a.m. to noon. Kids trick-or-treat through the shelter and then hand out treats to adoptable dogs. No registration is needed. The shelter asks families to skip masks in the kennel areas and leave their own pets at home. Hilliard's citywide trick-or-treat is the next Thursday, Oct. 29, from 6 to 8 p.m.
The second is the city's annual Tree Lighting on Dec. 6, from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m., in Downtown Hilliard and Weaver Park. It's free and includes horse and carriage rides, stilt walkers and balloon twisters. A free trolley will loop downtown with stops at Hilliard's Station Park, Main Street and the Historical Village at Weaver Park. Free parking is available at the Franklin County Fairgrounds and in the lots on Madison and Wayne streets. The event starts at 3:30, a half hour after Bakes by Lo's 3 p.m. Sunday close, which isn't much help to anyone hoping to grab cookies on the way to the trolley. Whether the bakery's hours change for that day is up to Bakes by Lo, so check its posted schedule.
Both events will be on a Main Street with just one of Warnock's three projects open. The bike shop could be open by December. Harvest and Lira are further off, and their plans are subject to change. Until then, the old Ketchum's Garage is the one finished example of what all three buildings are meant to become.
At Angelina Fox-Smith & Company, we keep track of how Main Street is changing, one building at a time. That includes what opened, what's still coming and what each change means for nearby homes. If you'd like to talk through how downtown's new businesses could affect your home's value, we'd be glad to sit down with you. Schedule a Free Consultation.
