In 2023, when Orange Township held its first-ever Founders Festival, organizers needed a park. They picked North Orange Park at 7560 Gooding Blvd, set up bounce houses and food trucks, and ran the whole thing from 2 to 6 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon. It made sense. That was where the space was.
Two years later, they didn't need the park anymore. The 2025 Founders Festival, held Sept. 27, moved to Evans Farm, where more than 80 vendors and a family scavenger hunt filled a commercial corridor that had barely started filling in when the festival launched. Public listings for this year's event still point to Evans Farm Drive as the address.
That's not a scheduling quirk. It's a map of where Lewis Center actually lives now.
What Changed Between the Two Festivals
The short version: Evans Farm went from a construction site to a place with enough restaurants, parks, and foot traffic that the township's own signature event chose it over purpose-built park land. Here's how the two years stack up.
| 2023 (Inaugural) | 2025 | |
|---|---|---|
| Location | North Orange Park | Evans Farm |
| Vendors | Not specified | 80+ |
| Activities | Scavenger hunt, food trucks, inflatables | Scavenger hunt, vendors, bounce houses |
| Cost | Free entry | Free entry |
Same format. Same low-key, family-first energy. Different center of gravity entirely.
What Got Built In Between
If you've driven Lewis Center Road in the past year, you've watched this happen in real time. A few specific additions explain why a township festival would rather anchor itself in a mixed-use development than a park built for one afternoon a year.
Johnson's Real Ice Cream opened its Evans Farm shop at 5915 Evans Farm Drive on March 25, 2026, with free scoops from 6 to 9 p.m. and free t-shirts for the first 50 people through the door. It's the Bexley-based brand's 10th Central Ohio location and the first on this side of I-71, which means the drive to Bexley or Clintonville for a cone is no longer necessary for anyone living near Evans Farm.
Another Broken Egg Café is taking over the former Panera space at 8823 Owenfield Drive, its second Central Ohio location after Easton Town Center. A storefront that sat dark for a stretch is becoming a full-service brunch spot.
Sexton's Pizza, already inside Evans Farm, has quietly become the neighborhood's evening anchor. It's not new, but it's walkable from most of the development's streets, which matters more than novelty when you're deciding whether to get back in the car.
Jennings Sports Park, a 56-acre complex with soccer and multi-sport fields, baseball and softball diamonds, batting cages, and a multi-level pavilion, opened on the western edge of Evans Farm in spring 2025. It changed the traffic pattern on Lewis Center Road on weeknights, because families started driving there instead of driving out.
Evans Farm itself was planned at this scale on purpose. The development sits on roughly 1,250 acres with about 2,200 planned single-family homes plus apartments, built around the idea that shops, restaurants, and parks should sit close enough to walk between. That scale is exactly why a township festival looking for a crowd would land there instead of a single neighborhood park.
"They bring a sense of warmth, familiarity and hometown pride that aligns perfectly with the experience we're creating here."
That's Zenios M. Zenios, managing partner of Evans Farm Development, talking about Johnson's specifically. But it's the same logic behind every addition to the corridor. The development isn't collecting tenants. It's assembling a rhythm.
The Weeknight Test
Here's the part that's easy to miss if you're only counting new storefronts: the sports park mattered before the restaurants did. A 56-acre facility with batting cages and multi-sport fields pulls families out on a Tuesday night whether or not there's anywhere to eat afterward. Once Johnson's and Sexton's were both a walk away from those fields, the evening stopped requiring two separate car trips. That's the actual shift. Not that Evans Farm got more businesses, but that it got enough of them, close enough together, that a normal weeknight doesn't require leaving a two-mile radius.
Friday Night Has a Regular Rotation Now
The restaurants get the headlines, but the bar and pub scene around Lewis Center has built its own steady calendar, and it runs on repeat rather than one-off events.
- Wednesdays at Keystone Pub in Lewis Center: Chris Logsdon, blending audience-participation songs with decades of acoustic rock favorites.
- Fenders: a rotating lineup of local bands, with a $5 to $10 cover depending on the night.
- Fridays at CJ's Soulfood: DJ Layne, karaoke, and live performances in a room the owners describe as an upscale, family-friendly space.
- Fridays at O'Nelly's Sports Pub & Grill: karaoke with Max, running 9 p.m. to 2 a.m.
- Mondays at O'Nelly's: open mic night with 50 Shades of Greg.
None of this shows up on a real estate listing or a moving checklist. It shows up on a Friday when you're deciding whether to stay in the neighborhood or drive to Polaris, and increasingly, staying in the neighborhood is the easier answer.
What September 27 Actually Tells You
Registration for the 2026 Founders Festival opened this spring through the township's own site. The event's public listing again gives the address as Evans Farm Drive, which means the corridor has now hosted the township's largest annual gathering for a second consecutive year. That's the difference between a one-time relocation and a settled decision.
A festival doesn't move because a park got smaller. It moves because somewhere else got bigger, busier, and better equipped to hold a crowd. Between 2023 and 2025, that's exactly what happened across Orange Township, one ice cream counter and one sports field at a time.
If you already live in Lewis Center, you've probably felt this without naming it. The drive-to-Polaris habit has quietly gotten smaller. The Tuesday night sports run doesn't end with fast food in the car anymore. The Friday karaoke crowd has a home base. None of that required anyone to announce a plan. It just accumulated, one opening at a time, until the township's own calendar caught up to where people were already going.
If you're weighing what your own place in that shift is worth, or thinking about whether your next move keeps you inside that two-mile radius or takes you somewhere new, The Agency Real Estate Group knows this corridor block by block. Get your instant home valuation and let's talk about what's actually changed on your street.
