Walk the Square on a Saturday morning and you'll pass the Pioneer Farmers Market lot at Academy and Oak before you ever reach a storefront. Depending on the week, someone's selling collards, turnips, blueberries, blackberries or peaches out of a truck bed. By the time you cross Three Notch Street, you're standing in front of Douglas Bros. Jewelry, a shop that's been family-owned and operated on the Square since 1871. That's not a typo. That's the same family, the same corner, for over a century and a half.
Most write-ups of downtown Troy treat the Square as a postcard: historic brick, a courthouse clock, some boutiques. What they miss is the actual pattern underneath it. This isn't a place where old businesses get replaced by new ones. It's a place where the people already there keep adding to what they built, and where the newest addition to the block isn't a shop at all. It's a business incubator working out of a former bank. If you live near the Square, that pattern tells you more about where it's headed than any list of what's currently open.
The Family That Never Left
According to a 2022 WSFA report, Yanni and Denise Tempelis opened Francesca's, their Italian restaurant, on the Square in 2012. A decade later, they expanded their business on the Square. In 2022 they opened The Market in the old Sips on the Square location, splitting it into a restaurant side selling goods made locally in Pike County and a food boutique with frozen and refrigerated retail. Across the street that same year, Richard Alexander and Adam Renfroe opened The Corner, a barbecue and cocktail spot the owners describe as casual dining with a higher-end feel.
Here's the timeline laid out plainly:
- 1871: Douglas Bros. Jewelry opens on the Square
- 2012: Yanni and Denise Tempelis open Francesca's
- 2022: The Tempelis family opens The Market, a second business on the same block
- 2022: Richard Alexander and Adam Renfroe open The Corner
A 2022 WSFA report noted that the two new businesses brought the historic Square to full occupancy.
The Bank That Became a Startup Factory
The most interesting thing happening on the Square right now isn't a restaurant or a boutique. It's the building at 63 South Court Square, formerly a Regions Bank branch, now known as the IDEA Bank. Troy University's Sorrell College of Business moved its Alabama Small Business Development Center into the space, making it the college's first tenant there.
According to a Troy University report, the IDEA Bank hosted Weekend Ventures from September 18 through 20, a three-day program that took Troy University students and Wiregrass community members from an unformed idea on Friday evening to a pitch in front of judges by Sunday. In that report, Juliana Bolivar, director of the Alabama SBDC at Troy University, explained that entrepreneurship requires skills that are difficult to learn from a textbook alone.
Think about what that means for the Square itself. The building that once processed deposits and loans is now the place where the next Corner or Market gets tested before it ever signs a lease. If the pattern of the last decade holds, some fraction of the ideas pitched last weekend will eventually need a storefront. There's a decent chance they'll look at the Square first, because that's where the SBDC already put them in the room with each other.
The Rhythm That Doesn't Depend on Any One Business
None of this works, though, if the Square is only interesting when something new opens. What actually holds it together week to week are two things that don't change: the farmers market and the calendar.
The Pioneer Farmers Market runs out of the lot at Academy and Oak, typically opening in the evening on Tuesdays and Thursdays and in the morning on Saturdays. It's not dressed up. It's produce, and it's been a fixture long enough that residents plan errands around it rather than the other way around.
Then there's TroyFest each spring, the juried arts and crafts festival that turns the Square into its busiest weekend of the year. A student writing for the Troy Messenger in 2024 described the Square on an ordinary day as a place where local artists set up to paint the sunset over the buildings, which tells you something about what happens on the days there isn't a festival at all. Most of the year, the Square is quiet by design. The businesses that have lasted there, from Douglas Bros. to Francesca's, were built for a town that treats downtown as a daily habit, not a destination you plan a trip around.
What's Actually Open If You're Deciding Where to Go Tonight
If you're trying to figure out where to eat or browse this week, here's the honest current mix, and it's worth noticing how much of it stacks two generations of ownership on the same few blocks:
- The Corner, Richard Alexander and Adam Renfroe's barbecue and cocktail spot, opened 2022
- The Market, the Tempelis family's second business, food boutique and restaurant, opened 2022
- Francesca's, the Tempelis family's original Italian restaurant, open since 2012
- B. Graves Restaurant & Bar, an upscale-rustic Southern kitchen a few steps from the courthouse, known for its whiskey selection and hand-pattied burgers, open Monday through Thursday from 4 to 9 p.m. and Friday and Saturday from 4 to 10 p.m.
- Douglas Bros. Jewelry, gold, sterling silver and Greek items, on the Square since 1871
- A run of specialty shops including Blooming Ridge Boutique, Pink Parlor, Posh & P Boutique and Glow, a beauty boutique
Flo's Grill and Kitchen, which serves West African dishes downtown, comes up often enough among Troy University faculty and students that it's worth a mention even though it sits a few blocks off the Square proper.
The Pattern Worth Watching
None of this is a claim that the Square never changes. It clearly does. What doesn't happen, at least not in the last decade of visible openings, is wholesale turnover. The businesses that leave the Square are rare enough that a single WSFA story about two new openings became news precisely because full occupancy was notable. The businesses that stay tend to multiply their own footprint instead of ceding it to someone else.
That's why the IDEA Bank matters more than its address suggests. A bank building becoming a startup incubator isn't just a reuse story. It's a place for new business ideas to get tested, as they did during Weekend Ventures. If you live near Court Square and you're wondering what's coming next, the honest answer might be sitting in a pitch deck from last weekend's Weekend Ventures cohort, waiting for the same kind of confidence that turned Francesca's into The Market ten years apart.
That's the kind of continuity that's easy to miss if you only look at what's open today. It's the reason the Square still feels like one town instead of a strip that turns over every few years, and it's worth knowing whether you're grabbing barbecue at The Corner tonight or just walking past Douglas Bros. on your way to the market truck at Academy and Oak.
If you're curious how a neighborhood like this one holds its value over time, that's the kind of question David Adams Realty spends its days answering for people in Troy and Pike County. Get your free home valuation or talk to a local expert whenever you're ready.
