A husband-and-wife team at Lily May Bourbon Company has operated a kid-friendly lunch-and-dinner restaurant and bar downtown since October. Another husband-and-wife duo — Wisconsin restaurateurs for 17 years — have served up food from multiple countries at Javier’s Cuisine, opened last month. Numerous other restaurants, large and small, are also slated to open in Bowling Green in the next few months.

McAlister’s Deli — with 571 locations nationwide — has a hiring ad out for an upcoming location at 2127 Gary Farms Blvd., where the building is under construction. The chain features sandwiches, soups, salads and baked potatoes among other deli fare.

The breakfast and lunch eatery SweetMilk and Salento Italia, which share a building in Nashville, are slated to open again in a building here at the front of the Hub development on Lovers Lane. Signs naming the two businesses and Mad Taco are on the building, which has space for more businesses.

Salento Italia owner Maryann Agelinas Graves said the Italian restaurant will open in February: “It’s a really great area,” she added, also pointing to the city’s growth.

Connected to Atomic Kitchen with a swing door, a new deli is planned for a tentative March 1 opening underneath the downtown parking garage, aptly named The Underground Deli. Atomic Kitchen proprietor Eric Leach is heading up the spot, where they’ll make soups, salads, sub sandwiches, several specialty sandwiches and deli sandwiches such as BLTs, Reubens, pastramis. The location, relatively small at 650 square feet, will offer to-go and delivery orders only, Leach said.

The idea came as Leach pondered Bowling Green’s wants and needs, he said: “There’s not a lot of deli shops downtown.” There’s a Griffs Deli a bit out, and Jimmy John’s does delivery — but it’s about trying to find a niche to meet the downtown market, especially with nearby businesses like the Med Center, and Western Kentucky University up College Street, he said.

More Japanese cuisine is coming to town with Wasabi Express, which submitted a site development plan at the corner of Westpark Drive and Charlie Court. Brittany Lewis, general manager at the company’s Wasabi Evansville in Indiana, confirmed they’ve purchased the land but don’t yet know when it’ll be up and operational, as the construction remains. The company also operates a location in Owensboro.

The Indian restaurant Sankalp plans to open a location at 110 Orange Court, a little north up Scottsville Road across from Greenwood High. The location, with vegetarian and non-vegetarian options, will open July 25, according to the website.

The restaurant franchisee Ohana Restaurant Group, which operates five Hawaiian Bros eatery locations across Oklahoma, Kansas and Arkansas, has signed a franchise agreement to bring one to Bowling Green. Announced Wednesday alongside four upcoming Lexington locations in a Kentucky expansion, the local franchise agreement lasts 15 years, said Carey Malloy, Hawaiian Bros’ chief development officer.

The restaurant group, which has operated its Hawaii Bros locations with much success, will start actively pursuing real estate opportunities very soon, she added.

Clean Eatz, operating more than 100 locations with a focus on nutritionally balanced food, intends to open at 1747 Scottsville Road. The website, which lists that it’s “coming soon,” states it’ll offer a dine-in cafe, catering and weekly, no-subscription meal plans.

The American chain First Watch is reportedly opening a location at 2945 Scottsville Road. And the expansive buffet chain Golden Corral has a location “coming soon” to Bowling Green, the company’s franchising Facebook page announced in June.

A McDonald’s spanning nearly 4,000 square feet indoors is planned for 6600 Nashville Road, according to a site development plan filed at the City-County Planning Commission of Warren County.

Now open

The recently opened Lily May Bourbon Company and Javier’s Cuisine bring new dining options to town from area families.

Javier’s Cuisine, run by husband-and-wife Javier Ortega and Yesenia Ortega, offers fresh Mexican fare alongside a range of specialty dishes across multiple cultures. Javier Ortega brings nearly four decades of cooking experience in restaurants, including in French, Italian and Asian cuisine throughout areas like Boston and Kempton, Illinois — fare from Boston apple salad and lobster crepes, to chicken bake pasta and seasonal soups.

With Yesenia Ortega overseeing service, the two operated a widely successful restaurant by the same name in Racine, Wisconsin, for 17 years, averaging 4.5/5 stars across more than 560 Google reviews. They became friends with customers who moved to Bowling Green and convinced them to visit — and the Ortegas fell in love and bought a house here in 2022, Yesenia Ortega said.

They moved to the city in March intending to retire, but changed course and on Dec. 18, and opened a restaurant here. The restaurant has a family vibe, with the Ortegas’ children and grandkids often around, Yesenia Ortega said — and they plan to expand the menu as they learn what Bowling Green likes, Javier Ortega added.

“I missed cooking, so I’m really enjoying it,” he said.

At the Lily May Bourbon Company, Elizabethtown-based husband-and-wife Chad Humphrey and Kristen Humphrey pair a bourbon company partnership with a mostly Italian-based menu that offers pasta, pizza and specialties like pot roast and the Lily May hot brown, a twist on the classic hot brown sandwich.

They partner with the Louisville-based Lily May Bourbon to sell their bottles of bourbon and Alexander Bullitt wine for on- and off-site.

Chad Humphrey pursues the restaurateuring after 22 years in the Army, while Kristen Humphrey balances it with her work as a registered nurse in E-town. The two opened shop here because Bowling Green was very open to the licensing they needed, he said.

While business is picking up on the evenings and weekends, they’re trying to get the word out about lunch, and the fact that they’re open to all ages.

“We’re just a small business, trying to get going,” Chad Humphrey added.

Lily May Bourbon Company opens 11 a.m. Tuesday to Saturday — until midnight on Friday and Saturday, and otherwise till 10 p.m. — beside SKyPAC, at 635 College Street, reachable at (270) 656-2508. Javier’s Cuisine, at 729 Chestnut St., opens from 4 p.m. to “closing,” Yesenia Ortega said — it could be until 9 or 10 p.m., depending on how busy they get; their number is (270) 495-1451.