Garland District Events in Spokane: What's Changed in 2026

If you’ve lived near Garland long enough, you probably assume the Tuesday market in the Gathering House parking lot is the same one that’s been running for years. It isn’t. The Garland Business District ran its own Garland Summer Market starting in 2021. Then the district chose to close the market.

The story of Garland’s changing offerings extends beyond the market to new restaurant and bar projects nearby.

The Market That Didn’t Come Back The Same Way

When the business district closed its Tuesday market, it handed the Gathering House parking lot to a different group entirely. Rather than replicate the old format, volunteer Joanna Newcomb and the Gathering House team built something with a specific focus: a market centered on refugee and immigrant owned businesses, launched in 2025 as the Global Food & Art Market. The first market drew seven vendors, with food sellers from Mexico, Iraq, and Syria among the early lineup, plus Ukrainian artists and participants in Thrive International’s Mahima Project.

Newcomb put the reasoning plainly when the idea for another generic market fell flat with local vendors who felt oversaturated already. She told The Spokesman-Review, “there’s something else we can do that is meaningful.”

The Global Food & Art Market returned for a second season in 2026, running Tuesdays from 3 to 7 p.m. at the Gathering House, 733 W. Garland Avenue. Its debut season ran through July 29, and if this year followed the same calendar, the market has already wrapped for the summer. That’s worth knowing if you’ve been meaning to catch it. You’re looking at next May, not next Tuesday.

The market is one part of a wider set of changes on the block.

Two Doors, One Block, Same Kind Of Bet

Alongside the market changes, the dining scene on Garland also changed.

North Hill on Garland closed on December 31, 2025, after owner David Hayes decided to step away from the restaurant he’d reopened inside the historic Masonic Temple building, built in the early 1920s. Six weeks later, Taylor Rainwater opened the Temple Tavern in that same space at 706 W. Garland Avenue, serving hand-tossed pizza and scratch-made pasta alongside classic and modern cocktails. Rainwater had lived in the Garland District from 2016 to 2018 and had watched the building’s earlier transformation into North Hill up close. When the space came open again, he didn’t hesitate. His stated reason for the concept, as reported by the Spokane Journal of Business, was that the district had “limited pizza and Italian food options.”

A block away, at 828 W. Garland, Aaron Fiorini, who also owns two Market Street Pizza locations, began converting the former Garland Drinkery into Red Rose Social, a craft cocktail bar. As of the Spokane Journal of Business report in February, the 850-square-foot space was mid-renovation, with permits on file for a new ADA-compliant bathroom and bar, and no confirmed opening date yet. Garland Drinkery had closed in 2025, and the district’s bar scene since then has leaned mostly on Garland Brew Werks.

Here’s the pattern across both addresses:

Address	Previous Tenant	Closed	New Tenant	What Changed
706 W. Garland Ave	North Hill on Garland	Dec. 31, 2025	Temple Tavern	Reopened Feb. 13, 2026, same building, new concept built around a specific gap in pizza and Italian dining
828 W. Garland Ave	Garland Drinkery	2025	Red Rose Social	Renovation in progress as of February 2026, targeting the district’s lack of a dedicated cocktail bar

Rainwater and Fiorini each moved ahead with plans for a business serving a gap they saw on the block, on their own timelines.

What This Actually Means If You Live Here

None of this changes property values or school boundaries, and that’s not the point. What it tells a longtime resident is where to look for signals about a neighborhood’s direction. The Garland Business District did not organize the summer market in 2026; the Global Food & Art Market returned for a second season at the Gathering House.

Meanwhile the block’s actual texture, the restaurants you’d walk to on a Friday, the bar you’d suggest for a birthday, is being shaped by people who moved here, watched the buildings for years, and then acted. Rainwater lived in the district from 2016 to 2018 and had his eye on the Masonic Temple building for years before the space finally opened up. That kind of patience is a better predictor of a business’s staying power than any grand opening headline.

The other fixtures on this stretch of Garland haven’t gone anywhere. The 1940s-era Garland Theater is still running, and long-standing spots like Mary Lou’s Milk Bottle, Brown Derby, and Ferguson’s Cafe are still the names people mention first when they talk about the district’s food scene. New operators are filling specific gaps. They aren’t replacing what already works.

The Calendar Between Now And Labor Day

If you’re deciding what to actually do on Garland Avenue this month, here’s what’s confirmed:

• Garland Pride, Saturday, August 22, 2026, starting at 3 p.m. along W. Garland Avenue
• Hot Summer Nights & Cruise Pt. 2, Saturday, August 29, 2026, starting at 7 p.m.
• Live Music Fridays and the Garland Brew Werks Run Club, both recurring weekly at 603 W. Garland Avenue

None of these require advance planning beyond showing up. The events also illustrate the block’s weekly rhythm: a run club, Friday live music, and a Saturday cruise night.

The Short Version

In 2026, the Global Food & Art Market returned to the Gathering House for a second season. Temple Tavern opened at 706 W. Garland, while Red Rose Social was under renovation at 828 W. Garland as of February. Garland Pride, Hot Summer Nights, weekly live music, and the run club are also on the late-summer calendar.

If you’re curious how any of this touches what your own home or a nearby property is worth, or you’re weighing a move within the neighborhood you already know well, John LJ Kennedy has spent years watching Spokane’s neighborhoods change block by block. Schedule Free Consultation whenever you’re ready to talk specifics.