Beignets & Brew Confirmed for Pear Orchard; Wawa Mystery Grows

Key Takeaways

• Beignets & Brew confirmed directly to Nate they're coming to The Shops at Pear Orchard; Publix (mid-September) is the only firm date in the complex
• The Wawa site has a fence up and Dirt Worx back on the property, with a reported 1,500-2,000 gallon fuel spill call and still no public statement — open records requests are in motion
• Fuel Fortress (former Joann building) hit delays past its hoped-for opening this week
• An L&N Federal Credit Union is coming to the mall corridor in the former Fergie's / Buffalo Wings & Rings building
• The data center zoning ordinance got its first reading Monday; the adoption vote is expected August 10

Summary

Nate Bryan opened this week's Business Buzz with a genuine scoop: Beignets & Brew — coffee and beignets — messaged him directly to confirm they're coming to The Shops at Pear Orchard, matching what the latest site plans show. Meanwhile the most-watched non-opening in town, Wawa on Ring Road, keeps producing questions faster than answers, with visible dirt work restarting and a reported fuel-spill call that no agency has publicly addressed.

For Hardin County, the segment was a snapshot of a busy growth corridor: a new-to-market credit union, a delayed gym, downtown moves, and the zoning decision on hyperscale data centers now one meeting away.

Full Article

Nate has been tracking the tenant list at The Shops at Pear Orchard for months, and this week the watching paid off. "The latest ones did show Beignets and Brew. They are coming," he reported. "They sent me a Facebook Messenger message. They confirmed it." The spot: the standalone shops building — not the Publix building — first unit on the left as you come in. Nate, a self-declared beignet enthusiast who has eaten them everywhere from Disney to Cafe Du Monde, has already volunteered for review duty. As for timing, the only firm date in the whole complex is Publix itself, penciled for mid-September; nothing yet on the other announced tenants.

Then there's Wawa. If you've driven Ring Road in the last couple of days you've seen it: a fence up and a Dirt Worx sign on the property. Nate's been told the parking lot is coming up and that workers have shifted to the Louisville Preston location in the meantime. The backstory is the part that still doesn't add up — a call reported that the fire marshal's office logged a fuel spill of 1,500 to 2,000 gallons at the site, and in the weeks since there has been no police report, no company statement, and no public update of any kind. Nate went to the firehouse in person and was told to come back; both he and Phil now have freedom-of-information requests in motion with the agencies involved. His frame for why this matters: E-town has dozens of gas stations taking thousands of fuel deliveries a year, "and this is the first time I've ever heard of this happening" — a spill event shutting a site down for weeks. One more data point: Wawa's national grand-openings list, which posts a month at a time, still doesn't show E-town. Don't expect doors open soon.

Elsewhere on the corridor, the Fuel Fortress gym going into the former Joann building by the new roundabout hit unexpected delays — they'd hoped to be open this week. They're active on social media, and Nate will share the opening date when they have one. And the mall corridor is getting a new financial name: an L&N Federal Credit Union is going into the former Fergie's / Buffalo Wings & Rings building. Nate — a banking-industry guy — was emphatic about the distinction: it's a credit union, not a bank, and as far as the crew could tell it would be the first L&N branch in the county. From the outside the building looks close to done.

Downtown had three quieter moves worth knowing: CNG Home Loans relocated to 29 Public Square, a striking new full-wall mural has gone up near the square from the artist behind the rotating seasonal murals, and The Olive Branch — a therapeutic play and play café — is taking over the former Cute Little Shop spot in the yellow building near Brown-Pusey House. "Caring" is the word Nate keeps hearing from people who know the owners, and the concept fills a real need for local families.

Nate closed by handing the city council recap to Phil, whose new civic coverage reports cover it in full: two new police sergeants sworn in, a SEED program for the south end, municipal orders including Steelgrove Amphitheater — and the hyperscale data center zoning ordinance's first reading. That was a reading, not a vote. The adoption vote is expected Monday, August 10, and Hardin Local will be covering it.

As always: it's Nate's segment and Nate's sourcing — dates and details land here first when they exist.