"It is about as attractive as we are going to get in Southern New Hampshire outside of Tuscan Village in Salem."
Andy Levy, a retail leasing broker at Verani Commercial, said this about Market and Main back when the development was still filling in its second phase. It read at the time like a compliment with an asterisk. Bedford was close, but Tuscan Village, with its restaurant density and steady stream of new concepts, was still the region's answer for a night out that didn't involve driving somewhere else first.
That asterisk has been harder to justify since late last year. If you've been to Market and Main mostly for a Trader Joe's run or a REI return, it's worth a second look. The lineup has quietly shifted from a place you shop to a place you might actually plan an evening around, and the shift happened in a stretch of about six months.
The Errand-Run Years
For most of Market and Main's life, the tenant mix told a consistent story: retail first, food as a convenience. The first phase, which included Trader Joe's and a restaurant called The Friendly Toast, was set to open in March, to be followed by a cinema, high-end restaurants and retail shops in later phases. Carrabba's Italian Grill pre-dates the development entirely, having been there before Market and Main was built around it.
The anchors that followed kept the pattern going. Sephora officially opened its doors at Market and Main, serving as an anchor tenant alongside REI, Whole Foods, Trader Joe's and Charles Schwab. REI announced a public grand opening that ran from Friday, October 6 through Sunday, October 8. J.Crew Factory and Warby Parker joined the roster afterward, along with Sweetgreen, which the development described as adding a fresh dining option to a lineup already anchored by REI, Sephora, Trader Joe's and Carrabba's. Good for a Saturday of shopping. Not, historically, a reason to drive over on a random Tuesday night for dinner.
Then and Now
| Category | Established (2019–2022) | Newest arrivals (late 2025–2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Grocery & retail | Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, REI, Sephora, J.Crew Factory, Warby Parker, Charles Schwab | — |
| Quick lunch | The Friendly Toast, Sweetgreen | CAVA |
| Dinner and bar | Carrabba's | Tavern in the Square |
| Multi-concept dining | — | Wonder (opening date pending) |
The left column is the Market and Main most Bedford residents already know by heart. The right column is what's new, and it's all food.
Three New Concepts, One Tight Window
Tavern in the Square was first to arrive, landing in Bedford in November 2025 with more square footage than its own recent expansions elsewhere in the region. The Bedford location has two bars and two floors, and the same company had only opened its first New Hampshire location in Salem's Tuscan Village around January 2025, a spot that became a huge hit before the larger Bedford space followed. That sequencing matters. Bedford didn't just get a Tavern in the Square. It got the version the company built after learning what worked at Tuscan Village itself, the same development Levy used as the benchmark Bedford couldn't quite reach.
A few months later, CAVA opened a new restaurant at 7 Main Street, Suite 4, on March 13, 2026, bringing its Mediterranean-inspired bowls and pitas to the development. The opening came with a community gesture that's easy to miss in a chain rollout: the location's opening event supported the New Hampshire Food Bank, and the store hired around 25 to 40 team members locally.
Then there's Wonder, the concept still on its way. Food Network personality Bobby Flay has partnered with Wonder, a virtual food hall concept opening locations across the country, including Bedford and Salem. In Bedford, Wonder will join the lineup with other restaurants and shops at Market and Main. A sign already in the window lists more than 20 exclusive menus, including Royal Greens Salads, Tejas Barbecue and Limesalt Mexican, all under one roof. As of this spring, no official opening date had been announced, so the honest advice for anyone planning around it is: watch the storefront, not a calendar.
What the Tuscan Village Comparison Actually Meant
Levy's quote wasn't really about square footage or tenant count. He was describing an elite group of smaller, higher-end boutique tenants, and pointed to Bedford's demographics and traffic counts as what made the property attractive in the first place. The comparison to Tuscan Village was always a comparison of restaurant energy, not retail. Bedford had the grocery anchors and the outdoor gear. It didn't yet have the reason to linger after dinner.
Three restaurant arrivals inside of half a year doesn't close that gap by itself, but it's the first stretch where Market and Main's new tenant announcements have been almost entirely food rather than retail. That's a different kind of momentum than a new J.Crew Factory location.
The Institution That Was Already Doing This
Long before Market and Main existed, Bedford had its own version of a destination night out, just across town. The Bedford Village Inn has been a AAA Four Diamond recipient for 18 years and a DIRoNA winner since 1996, with the largest wine cellar in New Hampshire, holding over 8,000 bottles across 750 labels. This year's Annual Cigar Dinner runs the evenings of August 19 and 20, a small reminder that Bedford's reputation for a proper night out didn't start with a shopping center. It started with an inn that's been doing this since before most of the development's current anchor tenants existed.
The two aren't competing so much as bracketing the town's options. One end is a formal, decades-old institution with a reservation-list wine cellar. The other end, three storefronts deep at Market and Main, is a faster, more casual version of the same idea, and it's finally starting to fill in.
What This Means for Tonight
If you live in Bedford and haven't updated your mental map of Market and Main lately, here's where things actually stand:
- CAVA has been open at 7 Main Street, Suite 4 since March 13, 2026, and is running full lunch and dinner hours.
- Tavern in the Square has been open since November 2025, with two floors and two bars, meaning it can absorb a bigger group without a wait than the Salem location that inspired it.
- Wonder has a storefront and a posted menu list, but no confirmed opening date. Worth a drive-by check before you plan an evening around it.
- The established anchors (Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, REI, Sephora, Charles Schwab, J.Crew Factory, Warby Parker, Sweetgreen, Carrabba's, The Friendly Toast) are all still exactly where they've been, unaffected by the new food additions.
- The Bedford Village Inn's Annual Cigar Dinner runs August 19 and 20, if you're looking for the other end of the spectrum this month.
None of this changes the zoning or the traffic pattern on South River Road. What it changes is what a Tuesday night in Bedford can look like without getting on Route 3 toward Salem. That's a small thing until it's the thing that saves you forty-five minutes of driving for a dinner that's now three minutes from your driveway.
Bedford keeps adding these small, useful pieces without much fanfare, which is fairly true to the town's character. If you're the kind of person who likes to know a place before you need a reason to know it, that's this year's update.
If you're weighing what a neighborhood like this actually offers day to day, not just on paper, that's exactly the kind of local read Lawrence Home Group keeps close tabs on. Reach out any time you want a longtime Bedford perspective on what's changing around town.
