If you have lived in Delmar for more than a few years, you know the pattern. A storefront at the Four Corners changes hands, everyone spends a week guessing what will land in the space, and then life resumes. What is different about 2026 is the pace. Three separate turnovers inside a twelve-month window, a long-promised coffee shop finally cutting the ribbon at Delaware Plaza, and a Glenmont commercial corridor pulling weight it did not carry two summers ago.
This is not a "best of Delmar" list. It is a snapshot for people who already walk these blocks and want to know which doors have actually opened, who is behind them, and how the map of a Delmar Saturday has shifted.
The Four Corners, Retenanted
Start at the intersection itself. A new restaurant opened in the former FoCo Taco space at the Four Corners in Delmar, with Stacked Grill opening for business on May 13. Stacked Grill is owned by Chris Stewart and Mike Blendell, who both grew up and live in Bethlehem, and they have been cooking professionally for almost 20 years. The address is 374 Delaware Avenue, and the menu leans toward smashburgers, chicken sandwiches, wings, and grilled cheese rather than tacos.
The turnover story matters more than the menu. FoCo Taco's owner was ready to do something different, and Stacked Grill, which serves American fare focusing on smash burgers and mostly take-out, replaced it. Stewart has been direct about the positioning. He said there is room in the Four Corners for both Swifty's, an established Delmar pub and eatery, and Stacked Grill because Swifty's focuses on a "sit-down" experience and his restaurant is more "for a quick grab." That is the important detail for residents. The corner is not competing with itself. It is layering.
The ribbon cutting came later, in July. According to the Bethlehem Chamber of Commerce, the restaurant is in an ideal location and has been well received by the community. "Four Corners is such a great place to have a business — you always have people walking the sidewalk, biking by, and driving through. Although Stacked Grill recently opened, it already feels like they've been here for years. You're always greeted with a wave and a smile, and you know you'll walk out with something delicious," Michelle Charpentier, president of the Bethlehem Chamber of Commerce said.
Around the same block, ice cream shop Delmar Scoop moved in this winter, and the older anchors are still doing what they do. Four Corners Luncheonette on Grove Street still opens at 9 a.m. seven days a week. The Four Corners Frame Shop at 379 Delaware Avenue keeps its Tuesday-through-Saturday hours. If you have been away from the intersection for a season, the shape is the same. The tenants are not.
Delaware Plaza Finally Got Its Coffee
Two blocks east, the longer-running saga wrapped up in March. A little over two years since it was first announced, Uncommon Grounds officially opened in Delmar, in the former Bruegger's Bagels space in Delaware Plaza. The wait was the story. Anyone who watched the paper signs come and go in that window knows it took longer than anyone expected.
The scale of the operation is worth understanding. This is Uncommon Grounds' 9th location in the Capital Region. The chain's other locations are in Stuyvesant Plaza, University Plaza in Albany, the Albany International Airport, the Empire State Plaza, Clifton Park, Saratoga Springs, North Greenbush, and Queensbury. For Delaware Plaza, that means a tenant with proven regional pull rather than a one-off experiment. The offering, per their own note to the neighborhood, is "freshly roasted coffee, hot bagels, delicious desserts, and our legendary bagel sandwiches."
If you have been driving to Stuyvesant Plaza for a bagel sandwich, that trip is now optional.
The Center of Gravity Moved South to Glenmont
Here is the piece most Delmar residents feel but rarely name. The commercial energy that used to live almost entirely on Delaware Avenue has been pulling south along Route 9 for two years now, and 2026 is when it became obvious.
Business is blooming in Bethlehem, with the arrival of national brand stores and Bethlehem residents opening businesses in their own community. Since Trader Joe's much-acclaimed October 2025 Glenmont opening, new establishments keep sprouting this spring in Glenmont and Delmar's commercial corridors. The ripple effects are traceable. At Glenmont's Route 9's northern end, Dollar Tree, displaced by Trader Joe's, has taken over some of Staples's vacated space, and All In Athletics, an indoor sports turf and basketball venue, will fill the remaining footage come May or early June.
The All In Athletics story is worth pausing on. Bethlehem resident Jessica Fuller, who co-owns All In Athletics with her husband and another Bethlehem couple, said the business grew from their love of sports and the Bethlehem community. She said the venue meets a community need for a sports facility with both green soccer/baseball turf and basketball courts, while providing an indoor space for kids and adults to play sports and socialize. A Bethlehem family filling a Bethlehem gap in a space that Trader Joe's indirectly opened up. That is a compounding effect, not a coincidence.
Two other Glenmont-area moves to keep on the radar. The Tipsy Moose, which replaces 333 restaurant, is still under construction but is expected to open this summer. And the RealMcCoy brewery, which quietly closed on Hallwood Road, may soon be occupied by a similar business.
The town's own read on the pace is measured. While commercial development along Route 9 may vex some residents, Bethlehem's senior economic developer Brianne Conner said the development seen there is comparatively small for Bethlehem's size, and that development along the corridor "has always been" part of a plan and contemplates traffic and environmental impacts. Whether you agree with that framing or not, it is the town's operating position.
The Saturday Morning Anchor Is Still the Farmers Market
While the storefront map has been rearranging itself, the Saturday routine has an anchor that has not moved. The Delmar Farmers Market is entering its seventeenth year of serving the Delmar area community, running May 2 through December 19, 2026. For 2026 the market is at Bethlehem Middle School, running Saturdays 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., and it is one of the Capital Region's most popular outlets for connecting residents with family farms and healthy, locally-grown food. The address is 332 Kenwood Avenue.
Two things about the calendar. The outdoor market season runs every Saturday from 9 AM to 1 PM starting in May through October, with an average of 50 local farms, food vendors and artisans, and in November the market moves indoors through the December holiday break. That indoor transition in November is often forgotten by residents who assume the season ends when the tents come down.
And most vendors are genuinely local. Per the market's own accounting, most of their vendors come from within 35 miles of the market.
How the Day Actually Fits Together Now
If you tried to walk a Delmar Saturday two years ago, the loop had gaps. Coffee options at Delaware Plaza were thinner. The Four Corners had a taco spot that closed at the end of February. The corner where Uncommon Grounds now sits was still papered over. In August 2026, the loop closes cleanly:
- 9 to 11 a.m.: Farmers Market at Bethlehem Central Middle School, 332 Kenwood Avenue.
- 11 a.m. to noon: Bagel or coffee at Uncommon Grounds in Delaware Plaza, in the old Bruegger's footprint.
- Noon to 1:30 p.m.: Lunch at the Four Corners. Stacked Grill for a smashburger to go, Swifty's for a sit-down, or Four Corners Luncheonette for a sandwich.
- Afternoon: Delmar Scoop for ice cream, or a drive south on Route 9 for a Trader Joe's run before the parking lot fills.
Nothing about this itinerary was fully available in the summer of 2024. That is the point.
What This Actually Says About Delmar
A market that retenants three storefronts in a year without a single long-term vacancy is a market with real demand behind its commercial real estate. Although Delmar's Four Corners currently has no vacancies, business life spans there vary because smaller and sometimes family-owned businesses occupy the storefronts, and those businesses can be more sensitive to seasonal factors, economic pressures, and owner life-cycle changes. The turnover, in other words, is not a sign of weakness. It is the churn of a small-owner ecosystem where the next tenant is usually waiting.
For homeowners who already live off Kenwood, Elsmere, or Delaware, the practical takeaway is smaller than the news feed suggests. The Four Corners is still walkable. The farmers market is still Saturday morning. What is new is that the neighborhood has more reasons to stay put on a weekend than it did the last time you looked, and Glenmont has quietly become the second commercial center rather than a satellite.
If you are thinking about what your home is worth in a market where the commercial fabric keeps thickening rather than thinning, Paula Rice has been watching these blocks since 1993. Get Your Home Valuation and get a read grounded in the corner you actually live on.
