The south end of the Berlin Turnpike in Newington looks a lot like what was sketched for it years ago. There's a supermarket and apartments on the old Eversource land near Stew Leonard's, and a coal-fired pizza oven is about to light up next door. Hardly any of it arrived the way the sketch said, though. The grocery building was built for a different grocer. The pizza place set its opening date more than a year after the developer's target. And the old supermarket a mile and a half up the road closed the day before the new one opened.
In 2026, Newington's Turnpike mostly kept to the plan while the timing and the names kept changing. Meadow Commons' roster was always more of a plan than a schedule. With Sally's Apizza scheduled to open on Oct. 28, the busiest stretch of the corridor is set to have all its anchors in place for the first time.
The Labor Day target, and what actually happened
In April 2025, Jeremy Grossman, president of the Massachusetts-based Grossman Development Group, told the Hartford Business Journal that the "majority of tenants," except the grocer, would be open at Meadow Commons by Labor Day. The tenants named at the time included Sally's Apizza, Shake Shack and PJ's Coffee. The grocer hadn't been announced, and Grossman said it wasn't clear when it would open.
Here's how the plaza actually filled in at 3333 Berlin Turnpike and the addresses around it:
- By July 2025: Shake Shack, CAVA and PJ's Coffee were open.
- November 2025: Market Place Kitchen & Bar opened at 3331 Berlin Turnpike.
- May 15, 2026: The Newington Chamber held a ribbon cutting for Wonder at 3313 Berlin Turnpike.
- July 17, 2026: Market 32 opened as the plaza's grocery anchor.
- October 28, 2026: Sally's Apizza set this date to open at 3329 Berlin Turnpike.
The restaurant whose name was attached to this site in early press coverage was also one of the last to get an opening date. In its opening announcement, CT Insider said the Newington location "has long been in the cards" but had faced delays.
The grocery building was built for someone else
The supermarket explains a lot about why the plaza filled in the way it did. In July, Market 32 and Price Chopper President Blaine Bringhurst told the Hartford Courant that Amazon built the building expecting to put an Amazon Fresh there. "Plans changed leaving it vacant and the plaza developer came to us," he said.
Because the shell already existed, Market 32 had to work within its size and shape. The Newington store is 43,078 square feet. That makes it the smallest Market 32 in Connecticut and about half the size of the Price Chopper it replaced. Bringhurst said the chain's stores usually average 65,000 to 70,000 square feet.
The weekly grocery run moved with it. Price Chopper at 2985 Berlin Turnpike closed for good at 6 p.m. the night before Market 32 opened. Bringhurst described the new spot as about a mile and a half from the old one, with more visibility on the Turnpike than the old store, which was "more hidden from main traffic routes." The new store has in-store sushi made daily, hot food bars, an olive bar, catering, a floral department and a seating area with charging ports.
Bringhurst also explained how a plaza like this works. "The other tenants that are, or will be, in this shopping center with us will help share the burden of driving customers to that parking lot and into each other's store," he told the Courant. When he said that in July, Sally's was still one of the tenants that "will be."
What Sally's brings to the parking lot
The company scheduled the opening for Wednesday, Oct. 28, at 5 p.m., with reservations starting at lunch on Thursday, Oct. 29. Here are the details, from the Hartford Business Journal:
- Seating: more than 100 seats in the dining room, plus a 12-seat bar
- Patio: 30 seats, opening in the spring
- Hours: 11:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, and until 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday
- Menu: coal-fired pizza, plus pastas, entrees and salads
- Other services: takeout, catering and private events
On opening night, the company planned a mystery tote bag with gift cards and branded merchandise for the first 50 people in line, and a scratch-off ticket for every customer, each one guaranteed to win, CT Insider reported.
For Newington, the bigger change is distance. Salvatore "Sally" Consiglio founded Sally's on New Haven's Wooster Street in 1938. The chain first came to the Hartford area in August 2024 with a restaurant at The Borden apartments on the Silas Deane Highway in Wethersfield. A second followed in 2025 inside Jordan's Furniture at Westfarms in Farmington. Newington makes three in Hartford County, and the company's development plan had a South Windsor location under construction as of early this year. A Newington household that used to drive to the Silas Deane or Westfarms for that pie will be able to get it in the same lot as the groceries.
Off the plaza, the same pattern on stand-alone lots
Meadow Commons isn't the only property on this stretch where the timeline ran long or the tenant changed.
Taco John's, 56B Costello Road. Just off the Turnpike, Taco John's opened its first Connecticut restaurant on Monday, Oct. 19. According to the Hartford Business Journal, plans first surfaced in 2025, when the operator asked for zoning approval to build a drive-thru restaurant in the parking lot of an Ashley Furniture store. The franchise operator is Newington-based Reliance Hospitality Group, which also runs Taco John's locations in Leominster and Boston. The lobby is open 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday. The drive-thru and delivery run daily from 7 a.m. to 1 a.m., which makes it one of the latest-open kitchens near the plaza.
Colony Grill, 3260 Berlin Turnpike. Plaza Azteca closed at this address in June. Fairfield-based Colony Grill plans to open there in 2027, and major renovation work was already underway by late August, the Hartford Business Journal reported. The plan calls for room for more than 175 customers, a patio, a full bar and the chain's first fully private dining room. No specific opening date has been announced. Colony Grill was founded in Stamford in 1935 and makes thin-crust, bar-style pizza. When it opens, this section of the Turnpike will have two old Connecticut pizza names close together: New Haven coal-fired at 3329 and Stamford bar pie at 3260.
The Turnpike map as of early November
Here's what's open, what's announced and what's gone on the Newington stretch, using the addresses in the coverage above.
| Address | Business | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 3333 Berlin Turnpike | Market 32 | Open since July 17, 2026 |
| 3333 Berlin Turnpike complex | Shake Shack, CAVA, PJ's Coffee | Open at Meadow Commons |
| 3331 Berlin Turnpike | Market Place Kitchen & Bar | Open since November 2025 |
| 3329 Berlin Turnpike | Sally's Apizza | Opening set for Oct. 28, 2026 |
| 3313 Berlin Turnpike | Wonder | Open; ribbon cutting May 15, 2026 |
| 56B Costello Road | Taco John's | Open since Oct. 19, 2026 |
| 3260 Berlin Turnpike | Colony Grill | Renovation underway; planned for 2027 |
| 2985 Berlin Turnpike | Former Price Chopper | Closed July 16, 2026 |
Colony Grill is the one item on that list without a firm date. Going by how this corridor has gone so far, "2027" is best read as a target. On the plaza itself, after Sally's scheduled Oct. 28 opening, the next date on the calendar is its 30-seat patio in the spring.
The Turnpike's new layout matters if you're selling a home nearby. A buyer looking at a Newington listing this winter will see a grocery store, a sit-down pizza dinner and a late-night drive-thru close together, a combination that wasn't there a year ago. Rockoff Realty lists Hartford County homes with professional photography, drone shots and 3D tours for a 1% listing fee, and we'll show the house and what's around it just as clearly. Sell with Rockoff Realty at 1% and get your free listing quote.
