If you have driven through downtown Jamestown in the last twelve months, you have probably noticed the sidewalk feels different. New signs. Painted trim on buildings that sat quiet for a stretch. A coffee bar where there used to be an empty storefront. The stretch of Main Street between 5th Avenue and the Willow has quietly become the busiest it has been in years, and most of the change happened in a single burst between February and May.
Here is the pattern worth noticing, and the reason this post exists: the people opening these new places are not outsiders discovering Jamestown. They are Jamestown people opening their second, third, or fourth thing. That detail matters more than any single storefront, because it explains why the new Main Street feels like an extension of the old one rather than a replacement for it.
The block that changed in one year
The Union Democrat covered the shift in February, and the reporting is worth reading in full at uniondemocrat.com. Here is the short version, mapped to addresses you already know.
| Business | Address | Opened | Behind it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jamestown Olive Oil | 18274 Main St | February 2025 | Cristy Thoburn |
| Divine Market at Jamestown | Former Barendregt's Grocery | March 2025 | New ownership of a longtime staple |
| Artemisia Herbals | 18138A Main St | May 2025 | Laura and Marc Wynne |
| New World Wine Co. | 18204 Main St | May 2025 | Cody LaPertche, Jamestown native |
| Winston's Coffee Bar | 18204 Main St (shared space) | May 2025 | Leslie Hurst |
Add to that a boutique that arrived a little earlier and has quietly become an anchor. Lulubelle Boutique at 18263 Main Street, owned by Kimberly Stewart, opened in June 2023 with women's boho country fashion described as a little bohemian and a little boho chic with a Western flair. A single block, five new doors, one recently reopened grocery. That is not a coincidence and it is not a tourism board campaign. It is a cluster.
Why the owners' names matter more than the storefronts
Read the ownership list again. Cody LaPertche, who owns New World Wine Co., is a Jamestown native, and Leslie Hurst, who owns Winston's Coffee Bar, shares the new business space with him at 18204 Main Street. Hurst is not new to running things in this town. She is the longtime owner of Hurst Ranch and part owner of Rawhide Meats in Jamestown and Studio B in Sonora. Coffee is the fourth thing she is running, not the first.
The Willow, further down the block at 18273 Main, follows the same logic. Former Jamestown Frosty owner Martin Steenkamp and current Jamestown Frosty owners Liz and Craig Dickson formed Jamestown Hospitality Group, LLC to purchase and reopen The Willow. Two generations of Frosty ownership, one shared LLC, one restaurant coming back online. The Frosty stays open. The Willow gets a second life. Nobody left, and nobody arrived from out of town to run it.
Even the biggest reopening on the block traces to a local operator rather than a hospitality chain. Renovations have been underway inside the Jamestown Hotel with plans to reopen the bar and restaurant in June, and the hotel is owned and operated by the Chicken Ranch Rancheria of Me-Wuk Indians of California.
Put those three threads together and the story is not "downtown is having a moment." The story is that a handful of established Jamestown operators decided, more or less at the same time, that the block was worth doubling down on. The new places share landlords, painters, and in one case a floor plan. Cody's wine bottles and Leslie's espresso machine sit in the same room, under oil paintings by Patrick Michael Karnahan.
What to actually do on a Saturday now
For anyone who has lived here a while and defaulted to the same three stops, the useful question is how the new places fit into a normal weekend. A rough sketch, working east to west along Main:
Morning. Start at Winston's for coffee. If you have kids or out-of-town family in tow, keep going and put them on a train. The 2026 Railtown 1897 State Park excursion trains run at 10:30 am, 12 pm, 1:30 pm and 3:00 pm on Saturdays and Sundays, a six-mile, 45-minute round trip on the rails of the "Movie Railroad," including past the iconic water tank seen in Petticoat Junction. The park itself is at 5th Avenue and Reservoir Road, three miles south of Sonora, so the whole loop is walkable if you park once on Main.
Midday. Lunch on Main. The mainstays are all still there. Since February 2024, numerous businesses on Main Street in Jamestown, including Pizza Plus, the Smoke Cafe, Bear Tent Brewing Company, Tiny Treasures Baby Shop, Emporium Antiques and Espresso, Stogies Gold Country Lounge, Morelia Mexican Restaurant, Jamestown Frosty, and CC Taqueria on Victoria Way, have persevered to remain open with customers. The Smoke Cafe at 18191 Main runs breakfast and lunch daily; Pizza Plus at 18148 has been on the block since 1994; Morelia at 18183 has been at it since 1997.
Afternoon. Browse the new small shops in one loop. Jamestown Olive Oil at 18274 Main for tasting. Artemisia Herbals at 18138A Main for tea, soap, and candles from Laura and Marc Wynne. Lulubelle across the street. Divine Market for grocery basics on the way back to the car; the store you probably called Barendregt's for years is under new ownership and a new name.
Evening. As of publication, the Jamestown Hotel bar and restaurant is targeting a June reopening and The Willow is being brought back by Jamestown Hospitality Group. Once those two open, the block finally has proper sit-down dinner again without a drive to Sonora.
The thing to actually watch
The Jamestown Hotel reopening is the one to track. The bar and restaurant is planned to reopen in June, and the rooms of the hotel are also being repainted. The building at 18153 Main is one of the oldest continuously operating hotels in the state, and the food side has been dark long enough that plenty of newer residents have never eaten there. When it reopens, the block will have three full-service kitchens within a two-minute walk. That is a density Jamestown has not had in years.
The Willow is the second one to watch. It has been closed long enough to become a running joke, and the fact that it is coming back under an LLC formed specifically to bring it back suggests the owners are not treating it as a side project.
"Big things happen in small towns," Leslie Hurst told the Union Democrat when Winston's opened.
That is a nice line for a coffee bar opening, but the more interesting version of it is quantitative. Five storefronts on one block, two more coming, all opened or reopened by people who already lived and worked here. That is not a small-town platitude. That is a functioning local economy where operators reinvest instead of exiting.
A note for people who arrived recently
If you moved to Jamestown in the last two or three years, you inherited a Main Street that was quieter than it is now, and quieter than it used to be. The version you are seeing this summer is closer to what long-time residents remember from earlier stretches, and closer to what the Railtown-driven weekend traffic can actually support. Show up on a Saturday between April and October when the trains are running and you will see it. The town of roughly three thousand five hundred residents that Yellow Pages describes as a charming atmosphere with preserved Victorian buildings and old frontier spirit, home to Railtown 1897 State Historic Park, is behaving less like a preserved museum and more like a working downtown again.
The reasonable prediction, based on who is behind the new openings, is that this holds. Operators with three and four local businesses do not open a fifth casually, and they tend not to close in a hurry either. If the Jamestown Hotel and Willow reopenings land the way the earlier five did, the summer of 2026 will be the first in a long time where Main Street on a Saturday night looks the way it does on a Saturday morning.
If you have been thinking about what your Jamestown property might be worth in a Main Street that finally has coffee, wine, olive oil, a grocery, and two returning restaurants inside a five-minute walk, the market is a different conversation than it was two years ago. Mother Lode Real Estate Team, led by Kristin Frankhauser, tracks Jamestown block by block and can tell you exactly how the recent openings are reading in buyer interest. Get your free instant home valuation on the site, or reach out for a conversation about what has actually sold, and at what price, since the block came back to life.
