If you've lived in Central Park for more than a year, you've probably heard the same rumor on repeat: a real grocery store, something bigger than King Soopers, is finally coming to the corner of 40th and Central Park Boulevard. Whole Foods filed site plans with the city, the signs went up, and everyone assumed it was only a matter of time.
Here's what nobody mentions: while that anchor tenant has sat in permitting limbo, a genuinely good neighborhood market has been open two miles north for almost two years, and most of the excitement south of I-70 has gone to restaurants nobody was actually asking for.
South of the highway, the fast-food pad sites moved first
The stretch of Central Park Boulevard just south of I-70, in the Runway 35 development built on the old Stapleton airport runways, has filled in with a very specific kind of tenant. Cracker Barrel opened its doors at 9111 East 40th Avenue on April 21, 2025, the chain's fifth Colorado location and the first one inside Denver's city limits. Northglenn had held the closest Cracker Barrel to Denver since 1995, so this was the first time the chain moved into the city proper. The opening created more than 150 jobs and came with a $30,000 donation to the Food Bank of the Rockies.
A year later, in the same complex, Chick-fil-A opened Runway 35 South on April 16, 2026, at 6 a.m. This one is worth noting for reasons beyond the chicken sandwich. It's Colorado's first drive-thru-only Chick-fil-A prototype, meaning there's no dining room, just a drive-thru, a walk-up window, and a patio. The Denver Gazette confirmed the format shift and the roughly 65 jobs it created.
Both of these opened on schedule, within roughly twelve months of each other, on the same stretch of pavement. If you've eaten biscuits and gravy or picked up a mobile order at that intersection this year, you've watched a fast-food corridor build itself out exactly as advertised.
The anchor that still hasn't shown up
Whole Foods is a different story. City filings reviewed by 9News show a developer proposed a 6.39-acre site at 3979 Central Park Boulevard, southwest of the 40th Avenue and Central Park Boulevard intersection, with the largest of four planned buildings, a single-story 35,500-square-foot structure, labeled as Whole Foods on the concept drawings. Westword reported the store would be the grocery chain's first location in northeast Denver, a genuine gap for a part of the city that has never had one.
That's the part that makes the timeline interesting. The site plan predates both restaurant openings. Cracker Barrel and Chick-fil-A were the smaller, faster-moving pad sites on the same corner, and both leapfrogged the anchor they were technically built around. As of this summer, there's still no confirmed opening date for Whole Foods. The two restaurants that were supposed to be footnotes to a grocery store opened first, by more than a year in Cracker Barrel's case.
This is a pattern anyone who's watched a mixed-use development get built has seen before. The restaurant pad sites are simpler builds, quicker permits, and lower stakes for the tenant. The big-box anchor carries more construction complexity and more corporate sign-off, so it moves last, if it moves at all on the timeline residents expect.
North of I-70, the market already opened
Here's the part of the story that gets skipped when people talk about "waiting for Whole Foods." Two miles north, in the Shops at Beeler Park, Pearl Market & Wine has been open since August 2024. It's not a big-box grocery store. It's smaller and more curated, built around a butcher counter, a seafood counter delivered weekly from a Boston supplier, house-made pasta, and a rotating list of family-owned wineries. Right next door, Carmella's serves coffee, pizza, sandwiches, and ice cream from a walk-up window across from the Beeler Plaza splash pad, open daily from early morning into the evening.
Pearl Market wasn't built to replace a full supermarket run. It was built by people who live in Beeler Park and the North End and wanted something closer to a European-style neighborhood market than another warehouse-sized chain. It fills a real gap for the households on that side of the highway, and it's been doing it quietly for close to two years while the more talked-about project to the south has stayed a fenced lot and a rendering.
Two corridors, two different bets
What this actually tells you is that Central Park isn't waiting on one grocery answer, it already has two competing ones in progress, and they're aimed at different parts of the neighborhood. South of I-70, near the old runway, the bet is on scale and national brand recognition, Cracker Barrel and Chick-fil-A now, Whole Foods eventually. North of I-70, in Beeler Park, the bet already paid off with something smaller, locally run, and open right now.
If your daily routine keeps you south near 40th and Central Park Boulevard, here's what's actually available to you this week, not what's coming eventually:
- Open now, south side: Cracker Barrel (9111 E 40th Ave, Building 10) and Chick-fil-A Runway 35 South (9111 E 40th Ave), both fully operational since 2025 and 2026 respectively.
- Still just a site plan, south side: Whole Foods at 3979 Central Park Blvd, filed with the city, no confirmed opening date as of this summer.
- Open since August 2024, north side: Pearl Market & Wine and Carmella's, in the Shops at Beeler Park, near 56th Avenue and Central Park Boulevard.
If you've been driving past the fenced lot south of I-70 assuming your grocery options are stuck in limbo, it might be worth the extra few minutes north instead. The market you were waiting for already has a name, and it's been ringing up sandwiches and wine bottles for two summers.
Watching a corridor like this fill in, and knowing which openings are worth planning around and which are still just permits on paper, is the same kind of pattern reading that matters when you're thinking about timing a move in either direction. If you're curious how development like this along Central Park Boulevard tends to shape home values on either side of the highway, or you just want a second opinion before your next decision in this neighborhood, Nick Leibbrand is worth a conversation. Let's Connect.
