Ask anyone in Loveland what's happening with the food scene right now and you'll get the same rundown: Rio Grande is coming downtown, Savina's is taking over the old Pinocchio's, there's a steakhouse attached to a car dealership on McWhinney. The town has been buzzing about all three for the better part of a year.
Here's what most of that buzz leaves out. Of the headline-grabbing additions to Loveland's restaurant scene, only a couple are actually serving food today. The rest are still permits, drywall, and a building that's been sitting empty since before most current Loveland residents moved here.
What's Actually Open Right Now
Start with the ones you can walk into tonight. Raising Cane's opened at 4363 Opalite Drive near the Loveland Sports Park on March 23, 2026, marking the chicken chain's first Loveland location after nearly a decade of operating in nearby Fort Collins. The restaurant leans into the local tie-in hard, with decor pulling from area high school and college sports gear alongside artwork of Loveland landmarks, according to the Denver Gazette's coverage of the opening.
Driven Steakhouse has been open even longer. It debuted in late May 2025 at 5720 McWhinney Blvd, tucked inside Endless Garage, a 25,000-square-foot showroom that stores and rents exotic cars alongside the dining room. Chef Thomas Newsted, a Culinary Institute of America alum with more than two decades in Colorado kitchens, runs a menu that includes a $240 Australian silver wagyu tomahawk and a $45 lobster tail moray. Co-owner Justin Summers has been candid that he built the restaurant because he wanted one, not because he had industry experience running one.
Smaller additions have landed too. Taste Local Café on Cleveland Avenue launched an after-dark concept called Taste at Night, open Thursday through Saturday from 5 to 10 p.m. with cocktails, mocktails, and small plates. The Breakfast Club opened its third Northern Colorado location at 610 N Cleveland Ave. And Loveland picked up the state's first Slice House by Tony Gemignani in the fall of 2025.
That's the actual, current, sit-down-and-order list. Everything else in the conversation is still under construction.
The Building Across from the Rialto
The most anticipated addition to downtown Loveland is a restaurant that won't open for at least another six months, and possibly longer. Rio Grande Mexican Restaurant, known simply as The Rio, confirmed in April 2026 that it's bringing its sixth Colorado location to 225 E. 4th St., directly across from the Rialto Theater. Founder Pat McGaughran opened the original in Fort Collins in 1986, and the chain's Greeley location was closing in on its 30th anniversary as the Loveland deal was announced. Loveland will be the first new Northern Colorado outpost the brand has added since.
The building itself is the real story. Constructed in 1893, the 6,720-square-foot space has cycled through tenants for over a century, including a Mr. Neat's formal wear store, but it has sat vacant since 2006. Sean Hawkins, executive director of the Loveland Downtown District, has said the city at one point intended to tear the building down and turn it into a pass-through to nearby parking, according to BizWest's reporting on the deal.
Instead, Fort Collins-based VFLA Architecture + Interiors is designing the space, and as of the firm's own project update, the Rio buildout is still in the design stage. CBRE brokered the lease, and McGaughran has said the restaurant will employ roughly 40 people once it's running. The Rio's own opening announcement puts the debut at early 2027, not this fall, not this winter.
So the answer to "when does the margarita spot across from the Rialto open" is: not for a while. The building went twenty years without a tenant. It's going to take a bit longer to reverse that.
Centerra's Version of the Same Wait
A few miles away, the Marketplace at Centerra is running its own slow-motion version of this story. The space at 1455 Rocky Mountain Ave. has been empty since Pinocchio's Incredible Italian was evicted in March 2024 over unpaid taxes. Before Pinocchio's, it was a Johnny Carino's. Renovation on the site began in the summer of 2025, and by January 2026, local reporting had identified the likely next tenant as Savina's Mexican Kitchen, the Denver-based chain formerly known as La Loma before a 2025 family split renamed two of its locations.
Co-owner Mark Brinkerhoff told 5280 Magazine the Loveland location was slated for a spring 2026 debut. Spring came and went. As of the most recent local coverage this past March, the project was still described as taking its time on renovations, and nothing in the available reporting confirms Savina's has actually opened its doors as of this writing.
Here's a side-by-side of where things actually stand:
| Restaurant | Address | Status as of late August 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Raising Cane's | 4363 Opalite Drive | Open since March 23, 2026 |
| Driven Steakhouse | 5720 McWhinney Blvd | Open since late May 2025 |
| Taste at Night | Cleveland Avenue | Open, Thu–Sat evenings |
| The Rio | 225 E. 4th St. | In design, targeting early 2027 |
| Savina's Mexican Kitchen | 1455 Rocky Mountain Ave. | Renovating, no confirmed open date |
Why the Old Buildings Move Slower
The pattern isn't random. Raising Cane's built on a pad site near an existing commercial corridor, the kind of ground-up construction that fast-food chains have down to a science. Driven Steakhouse opened inside a purpose-built showroom designed for exactly this use. Both moved from announcement to open doors in a matter of months.
The Rio and Savina's are doing something harder: fitting a modern restaurant into a building that predates the restaurant industry as we know it, or into a box that's already failed twice. A building that's been vacant for two decades doesn't just need new paint. It needs code work, infrastructure most tenants never think about, and the kind of design process VFLA is still in the middle of. A retail box that's cycled through Johnny Carino's and Pinocchio's carries its own baggage, whatever that ends up meaning for the buildout timeline.
If you've been waiting for either address to reopen, the wait has less to do with the operators dragging their feet and more to do with what it actually takes to bring a hundred-year-old downtown building, or a twice-failed strip mall unit, back to life.
What Hasn't Moved At All
While the restaurant map keeps shifting, one part of Loveland's calendar hasn't budged in over a century. The Loveland Corn Roast Festival hit its 130th year this month, running August 21 and 22 at Fairgrounds Park with the same bones it's had for decades: a Saturday morning parade down Railroad and Cleveland avenues, roasted corn, a beer garden, a cornhole tournament, and the Loveland Rotary Duck Race. It's been happening since 1896, longer than any restaurant currently open in this town.
Next up on the city's calendar is the Honey Festival on September 13, and the Farmers Market keeps running through September 27. If you're tracking the food scene block by block, it's worth remembering that Loveland's actual civic rhythm, the parades and festivals that predate every restaurant on this list, keeps its own schedule regardless of what's happening on 4th Street or in Centerra.
For now, the honest version of the Loveland food scene story is this: Cane's and Driven Steakhouse are real, open, and taking reservations. The Rio and Savina's are real too, just not yet. Anyone telling you differently hasn't checked the actual address lately.
If you're keeping tabs on what's changing in Loveland neighborhood by neighborhood, whether it's a new restaurant finally opening its doors or a shift in what a specific block is worth, Venna Hillman tracks the details that don't show up in a generic city guide. Reach out anytime you want the ground-level read on what's actually happening here.
