"The plaza is special," Pasha Khosravani told MLive in February. "We wanted to scoop it up before anybody else did."
He was talking about 3023 Oakland Drive, where he grew up getting ice cream with his mom at Schultz's Treat Street. Five doors' worth of addresses away, at 3003, a family from Limerick has spent 2026 turning the old Oakwood Bistro into an Irish pub. Between July and November 20, the two storefronts that held Oakwood Plaza's best-known independent food spots both got new occupants. Each new tenant is set up to handle the specific problem its predecessor named when it closed.
What Actually Closed the Two Storefronts
Treat Street opened in 1992. Erin Schultz, who owned it with her husband from August 2020, announced in July 2025 that the shop would close at the end of the month. She gave several reasons in MLive's closing story: running Treat Street alongside Schultz Sweets and a family had become "very difficult," and the business ran on about three busy months followed by a mostly quiet rest of the year.
The shop also had a mural. Sue Lyon painted it in 1996, and over the years owners added themselves on a bench or porch, with their children in the park scene. In 2022 Schultz said "the mural isn't going anywhere" and planned to add her own family with artist Gerald King. None of the 2026 coverage of the new tenant says what happened to it.
Oakwood Bistro's ending came two years earlier and had a different cause. Ryan Soule, chef there since 2003 and owner since 2009, served his last night on Dec. 31, 2023. He said the restaurant never fully recovered from the pandemic. He pointed to rising food costs, staffing problems and margins that made it hard to keep quality up without charging more than he felt a neighborhood restaurant could charge.
So one storefront closed over a calendar problem and the other over a pricing problem. Both successors were built around those exact issues.
3023 Oakland Drive Now Stays Busy All Year
5th Street Burger & Fries opened in the old Treat Street space in July 2026. It is the brand's third location, after two in Arizona. Khosravani spent more than 20 years out West. He moved back to Kalamazoo with his wife to be closer to his mom, while his business partner kept running the Arizona side.
The menu is fresh smashburgers with unusual toppings. The grilled-pineapple Hawaiian Burger and the PB and PJ Burger, with pepper jack, peanut butter and pepper jelly, were the examples he gave before opening. He also said sauces, burgers and vegetables are made fresh every day, with no microwaves or heat lamps. The current menu adds a Spicy Western Burger, sliders, straight-cut and sweet-potato fries, beer-battered onion rings and funnel-cake fries.
Look at the hours next to Treat Street's three-month season. The restaurant's site lists the Kalamazoo store as open seven days:
- Monday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.
- Friday, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.
- Saturday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.
- Sunday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Burgers and fries don't drop off in October the way soft serve does. And the funnel-cake fries mean the corner still has a dessert option.
3003 Oakland Drive Will Be a Pub With Several Rooms
The former Bistro space is 4,400 square feet. Gillian and Eamonn Nestor are turning it into The Emerald Oak. Eamonn first came to Kalamazoo in 2017 on a three-year Stryker assignment from Limerick. After going back to Ireland, the family looked for a way to return and came back in 2021.
The date to remember is November 20. In July, MLive reported an October opening. The pub's own site now lists "Grand Opening - November 20th 2026," and as of today it has not opened.
The financing helps explain why this restaurant expects to make different math work in the same room. The project costs $1.2 million in total, with more than $1 million coming from personal investment and private financing. On July 6 the city of Kalamazoo approved a $120,000 Economic Initiative Fund loan for the pub, to be repaid quarterly over 15 years at 2% interest.
The building's layout is meant to bring people in for different reasons at different hours. The Nestors describe three areas:
- The main bar, for soccer mornings, rugby, NFL games and live Irish music on some evenings.
- Quieter dining rooms for meals and conversation.
- The whiskey snug, which has no televisions and can be booked for private dinners, team meetings and Irish whiskey and gin tastings. Eamonn Nestor's line for it is "no screens, just stories."
The menu will start small and use Irish ingredients. KZOOKIDS lists whiskey, beer, cocktails, fish and chips and a traditional Irish breakfast. Gillian Nestor left her job with the Mattawan Public Education Foundation to work at the pub full time. Eamonn is keeping his job as a senior vice president at Smith + Nephew. The family has also hired a local general manager with 30 years in food and beverage.
Soule worried about what a neighborhood restaurant could charge. The Emerald Oak is answering that with more reasons to come in: a match on Saturday morning, a booked snug on a weeknight, a tasting event, a regular dinner.
The Tenants That Stayed
Both storefronts could change hands without changing the plaza because the businesses between them never left. Walking it by address:
- Sawall Health Foods, 2965 Oakland Drive. The family moved its Kalamazoo store into Oakwood Plaza in 1990. In 2017 it added a second-floor mezzanine for Café 36 and expanded the ground-floor deli. Sawall's site lists hours of 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday.
- Fletcher's Pub, 3013 Oakland Drive. A 2010 dining write-up already placed it here. The menu runs from burgers and sandwiches to pasta and seafood.
- Bookbug and this is a bookstore, 3019 Oakland Drive. Bookbug opened in 2008 and its adult-focused sibling in 2017. Joanna Parzakonis owns both, according to NowKalamazoo. Bookbug has a reading nook and a café run by Factory Coffee.
- Subway, 3025 Oakland Drive, open 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily.
- Water Street Coffee, 3037 Oakland Drive, open from 6 a.m. on weekdays and 7 a.m. on weekends.
Once The Emerald Oak opens, the strip from 3003 to 3037 will have coffee from 6 a.m., a pub and two restaurants into the evening, a grocery, and two bookstores. The longest-running tenant arrived in 1990 and the newest will open six weeks from now.
Around Oakland Drive Before November 20
The dates below fall between now and the pub's opening, and none of them require driving downtown.
- Oct. 16: This is a bookstore is selling books at a poetry reading featuring Mark Turcotte at WMU.
- Oct. 21, 7 p.m.: The Oakland Drive-Winchell Neighborhood Association meets at Third Christian Reformed Church, with David Rachowicz of Kalamazoo County Parks speaking.
- Oct. 31, 5 to 8 p.m.: Safe Street Trick or Treat on Tipperary Road and Fitch Avenue.
- All season at Woods Lake Park: Gates, restrooms and water fountains at some city parks closed Oct. 1 and stay closed until May 1. Kzoo Parks says Woods Lake's upper lot is still open, and parks are open daily from 8 a.m. to sunset.
- Nov. 20: The Emerald Oak's grand opening at 3003 Oakland Drive.
After that, on Nov. 25 from 4 to 5 p.m., the Kalamazoo Public Library's mobile library stops at the Oakwood Neighborhood Association, 3320 Laird Avenue.
For more on this part of the city, see our Kalamazoo neighborhood guide. For the downtown side of the fall calendar, there's our look at how 269 Fest pulled existing events into one week.
A pub, a burger counter and a grocery store within walking distance are part of what makes an Oakwood address worth what it is. If you live near Oakland Drive and want to know how the plaza's next chapter fits into your home's value, Rodriguez Homes can give you a local, data-based starting point. Get Your Instant Home Valuation.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
