"Willow Festival's role as a premier North Shore destination." That's how Nick Koglin, a vice president at Regency Centers, described the shopping center's latest lease when PGA Tour Superstore signed on for a 30,000-square-foot space at 1072 Willow Road. It's the kind of line a landlord says about every new tenant. Except this time the description holds up, because what's opening there on October 3 isn't a golf shop. It's eight TrackMan simulators, an 850-square-foot indoor putting green, and a weekly Saturday clinic. You could walk in without a single club to buy and still have somewhere to be for an hour.
That's the part worth noticing about Willow Road this year. It isn't picking up more places to shop. It's picking up more reasons to stay.
What's Actually Going Into 1072 Willow Road
PGA Tour Superstore's Northbrook location has been in motion since February, when the Atlanta-based retailer signed its lease inside Willow Festival Shopping Center. The store held a two-day hiring event at the Renaissance Chicago North Shore Hotel in August, and the company confirmed the date that matters: doors open at 9 a.m. on Saturday, October 3, with giveaways for whoever's first in line.
Once it's open, the layout tells you what kind of business this is supposed to be. Alongside racks of apparel and footwear, there's custom club fitting, same-day repair, and a dedicated simulator showroom where you can compare more than a dozen launch monitor systems side by side. The company runs a recurring Saturday session called "Saturdays at the Superstore," free clinics from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. built around driver optimization and short game work, open to whoever shows up. Chicago Golf Report, which covers golf retail across the region, put it plainly: the line between golf store and indoor golf venue is getting hard to draw, and a Chicago winter is exactly when that distinction starts to matter. When outdoor courses close, a heated bay with a launch monitor becomes the only golf most North Shore players get for five months.
Northbrook is a reasonable place to bet on that. The store will be PGA Tour Superstore's sixth Illinois location, joining Downers Grove, Lincoln Park, Orland Park, Schaumburg, and Vernon Hills, and Regency's own pitch leaned on the density of golf nearby, more than 90 courses within reach, including Deerfield Golf Club and the Glen Club a short drive away.
It's Not the First Business on the Block Built Around Staying Put
Look at what's already on Willow Road and the pattern gets clearer. Pinstripes, at 1150 Willow Road, pairs Italian-American brunch with bowling and bocce under general manager Jhonny Morales and executive chef Osiel Castrejon. Lazy Dog Restaurant & Bar took over the former Granite City Food & Brewery space at 992 Willow Road, and its menu changes seasonally rather than staying fixed, the kind of detail that rewards a second and third visit instead of just a first one. A few blocks down at 1350 Willow Road, Willow Hill Bar & Grill markets itself on the strength of its location alone: it sits, by its own description, at the highest point in Cook County, with floor-to-ceiling windows facing the Chicago skyline. None of these are places you run into for five minutes. They're places you plan an evening around.
Here's a quick look at how the corridor has filled in this year, and what kind of visit each new business is actually built for:
| Business | Address | Opened / Opening | What you're there to do |
|---|---|---|---|
| Just Salad | 3806 Willow Road | April 1, 2026 | Quick counter-service lunch or dinner |
| Auntie Anne's & Cinnabon | 1036 Willow Road (Willow Festival) | June 15, 2026 | Grab a pretzel or cinnamon roll between errands |
| PGA Tour Superstore | 1072 Willow Road (Willow Festival) | October 3, 2026 | Fitting, practice, or a Saturday clinic |
The Corridor Still Has a Grab-and-Go Track
Not everything landing on Willow Road this year is chasing that lingering-destination model, and it would be misleading to pretend otherwise. Just Salad opened its doors at 3806 Willow Road on April 1, marking the chain's tenth Illinois location. In the company's own framing, the opening was designed to serve both Northbrook and Glenview at once, and it launched with a giveback day donating a dollar per purchase to the Glenview Park Foundation, plus a stretch of five-dollar meals to introduce the menu. That's a business built around speed and repetition, not lingering.
Auntie Anne's and Cinnabon followed in June with a combined location at 1036 Willow Road inside Willow Festival, a veteran-owned shop and, notably, the only spot in the area serving both brands under one roof. It held its ribbon cutting on June 15. Like Just Salad, it's a stop measured in minutes, not an evening plan.
So the corridor is actually building in two directions at once. The quick-service additions serve whoever's already running errands at Whole Foods, REI, HomeGoods, or Lowe's, all of which anchor Willow Festival and pull steady weekday and weekend traffic on their own. The destination-style additions, the golf store with simulators, the bowling and bocce, the panoramic patio, are betting that people will choose to come back specifically for what's inside, not because they happened to be driving past.
What This Looks Like on an Actual Saturday
If you're picturing early October, here's roughly how it plays out. Whole Foods and REI keep their regular hours through the weekend, the same as they have for years. On October 3, PGA Tour Superstore opens its doors for the first time at 9 a.m., with a line likely to form for the opening giveaways. If you're not there for the first-day crowd, the Saturday clinics run weekly afterward, and the simulator bays and putting green are available for practice or fittings any day the store is open, not just launch weekend.
If golf isn't the draw, the rest of the corridor still works the way it has this year. Auntie Anne's and Cinnabon are open daily for anyone who wants something sweet after a Lowe's run. Just Salad is a fast, plant-forward option if you're headed home from Whole Foods and don't feel like cooking. And if you're planning an actual evening out rather than an errand, Lazy Dog, Pinstripes, and Willow Hill Bar & Grill are all a short drive apart on the same road, each built around a different reason to stay for more than twenty minutes.
None of this required a grand plan from the village. It's the ordinary outcome of a shopping center landlord filling vacancies with an eye toward what keeps a strip busy after 6 p.m., not just at lunch. Regency's own language about a "premier destination" was corporate shorthand, but the leases it signed this year back it up more literally than most real estate announcements do.
Willow Road was never a secret. It's had Whole Foods and REI for years, and Lazy Dog and Pinstripes have been drawing dinner crowds since before this year started. What's changed in 2026 is the mix filling in around them, quick stops for the errand-runners, a new indoor golf venue built to be visited weekly rather than once, and a corridor that's starting to function less like a strip mall and more like a place people build a Saturday around.
If you're weighing what it's like to actually live near a corridor like this, not just what a listing says about it, that's the kind of on-the-ground context The JG Group brings to every conversation about Northbrook. Reach out anytime you want a straight read on a neighborhood before you make a decision about it.
