What's New in Downtown Troy Illinois This Year

The Times Tribune reported that for months, the open secret making the rounds in Troy was simple: McDill's Irish Pub, the Collinsville institution known for its whiskey list and pub grub, was finally bringing a second location north. Then Pat McDill, the pub's co-owner, called the Troy Times Tribune to correct the record himself. The new spot will share his family's ownership. It will not share the name, and it won't share much of the menu either.

That distinction is worth sitting with, because it says something about how outside businesses are starting to read this town.

A Building Going Up, a Name Still Missing

The project is real, and it has an address: across US 40 from Henning Elementary School, on a planned 800-foot side street set to be named Spc. Patrick McDill Road. The site sits on 4.5 acres already zoned commercial, and the building is described as a one-story brick structure designed with roll-up doors that open the space to the outdoors on mild days.

The plans call for a mix that reads more like a neighborhood hangout than a chain outpost:

• A rear patio seating around 50 people
• Indoor seating for roughly 80 more
• A walled-off gaming area with a small pool hall and two tables
• Three dartboards
• The bar itself, which McDill called the heart of any public house

McDill told the paper he expects to employ about 30 people once the doors open, with hours running from 11 a.m. daily until whatever closing time the liquor license allows. As of the city's late-May 2026 planning discussions, the project was headed to the Troy City Council in June for approval, with construction hoped for later this year pending that vote and bank financing.

What McDill hasn't settled on, deliberately, is a name.

Why Not Cloning the Original Is the Interesting Part

Ask most restaurant owners why they'd hesitate to copy a proven concept into a new town and the answer is usually logistics. That isn't what McDill said. He told the Times Tribune he doesn't want the Troy location pulling customers away from the Collinsville original, so the menu will differ, with maybe one or two shared dishes at most.

That's a different kind of bet than the usual small-town expansion story. It treats Troy's dining scene as its own market with its own customer base, not overflow parking for a restaurant fifteen minutes down the road. If McDill were building spillover capacity, cloning the brand would be the obvious move. Instead he's building something new because he believes Troy can support it on its own terms.

Down Edwardsville Road, One Restaurant Already Wears the Crown

Whatever the still-unnamed spot turns into, it will be entering a town where the current top-rated restaurant didn't get there by playing it safe either. Fire-N-Smoke Wood Fired Kitchen, tucked into a strip at 914 Edwardsville Road, currently holds the number one spot out of 23 restaurants in Troy on Tripadvisor, rated 4.3 out of 5 across more than 200 reviews as of this summer.

The kitchen runs Tuesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. most days and until 9 on Fridays and Saturdays, closed Mondays. Regulars know two things going in: the brisket and burnt ends are the reason for the line, and popular items can sell out before closing on a busy night, so earlier is better than later if you have your heart set on something specific.

A wood-fired barbecue counter earning the top local ranking out of two dozen options, in a town about to add a second full-service pub built around its own identity, isn't a coincidence so much as a pattern. Distinct concepts are what's winning here, not duplicated ones.

Main Street's Monthly Appointment

Downtown has also settled into a rhythm that didn't exist in quite this form a few years back. First Fridays now runs as a recurring series, with Main Street between Clay and Market closed off for a few hours on event dates and a different theme each time.

The season opened on May 1, with Gina Buchholz of Market & Main describing plans to set up an outdoor tent for the evening, pouring a bourbon smash and a strawberry and basil vodka lemonade for whoever wandered by. By June 5, the theme had shifted entirely for "Crafted. Corked. Casks.," a 21-and-over tasting walk through downtown built around regional breweries, wineries, and distilleries, with guests carrying a tasting glass and passport from stop to stop.

August brought "Art on the Streets," with chalk art and community art projects filling the block and Ryan & Rainn, members of the Zach Bryan tribute act Revival, headlining after opener Spencer McDole took the stage at 5 p.m. July skipped its usual date entirely to make room for the Fourth of July, which tells you the series has enough standing on the community calendar now that organizers plan around it rather than squeezing it in.

None of this requires an events app to notice. If you've walked down Main Street on a first Friday evening this year, you've already seen the difference between a town testing whether people will show up and a town that knows they will.

The Empty Lot at 107 North Main

At 107 North Main Street, demolition crews started tearing down a house on May 7, 2026. In its place, the city plans a 26-space public parking lot with room for a couple of picnic tables, with hopes to put the project out for bid sometime in July or August of this year.

A parking lot isn't a dramatic headline on its own. But converting a residential lot in the heart of downtown into public parking is a visible infrastructure change, alongside a recurring street festival and a growing restaurant scene.

What the Pieces Add Up To

Put the McDill family's caution about protecting Collinsville's customer base next to Fire-N-Smoke's number one ranking, next to a monthly street event confident enough to skip a July date and pick right back up in August, next to a city willing to clear a house for parking. None of these is a large development on its own. Together they describe a downtown where outside investment is arriving alongside city planning, with new activity taking shape on Troy's Main Street.

That's a different story than the one most small Metro East towns get to tell, and it's worth knowing if you already call Troy home. For a closer look at how the town's growth shows up beyond downtown, our Troy neighborhood page tracks what's changing block by block, and if you've ever wondered how a new-construction subdivision here compares to one of the older, established streets, we've broken that trade-off down separately.

Curious what else is shifting around town, or thinking about where you'd fit into it? The Kehrer Team keeps a close eye on both the local scene and the local market. Contact Your Trusted Real Estate Partners whenever you're ready to talk about what's next.