Friday, September 4 was the first day in over three months that a car could drive straight through the stretch of North Main Street between Center Street and First Street in Uptown Lexington without hitting a detour sign. Business owners who had watched foot traffic evaporate all summer stood on the sidewalk and just watched the traffic move. Stephanie Huynh, whose family has run a restaurant on that block for a quarter century, parked near her old spot for the first time since May and said it felt normal again. It also happened to be a First Friday, the night Uptown businesses stay open late, so the return of through-traffic came with an audience built in.
But drive that same block today and two lots sit empty where two businesses used to be. The street reopened. The neighborhood it runs through is still only partway back.
The Fire That Took Out a Corner, Not Just a Building
Early on May 19, a fire started at Shoto Japanese Steakhouse and Seafood and spread fast enough to collapse the roofs of both Shoto's building and the one next door, home to The Candy Factory. Shoto had just marked its 25th anniversary on North Main Street. The Candy Factory had been in that same spot since 1978. Neither survived the fire in any usable form.
The damage did not stop at those two addresses. Tonya Doggett, who owns Bagels and More on Main and Lexington's Best Pizza in the building next door, took on heavy smoke and water damage and had to close for weeks. Main Street Deli, on the same stretch, saw similar damage. For the next several months, North Main Street between Center Street and First Street stayed closed while crews stabilized the structures and worked through the demolition. Business owners a few doors down, far from the fire itself, told local reporters they had lost as much as half their sales just from the road closure and the detour signs that came with it.
That is the part of this story that a lot of coverage skipped past on its way to the reopening headline: the closure hurt businesses that had nothing to do with the fire, purely because the road in front of them stopped carrying traffic.
Same Reopening, Two Very Different Recoveries
Here is the detail worth sitting with if you live near Uptown and are trying to figure out what "back to normal" actually means right now. The businesses along this block are not recovering on the same timeline, and the street reopening does not change that.
Back or reopening on a short runway: Doggett's businesses and Main Street Deli took damage but kept their buildings. Once the street reopened, these are the operations that can return to something close to their old rhythm within weeks, not years, because their walls, floors, and kitchens are still standing.
Rebuilding from the ground up: Shoto and The Candy Factory lost their buildings outright. Stephanie Huynh has said the family plans to rebuild on the same site, but as a two-story building instead of three, and they are still working through the design with architects. In the meantime, the Huynh family opened a Shoto food truck outside Brewer's Kettle on East First Avenue, giving longtime customers a way to get their order without a dining room to sit in. Candy Factory owner Annette Conrad has said she is trying to recreate the store's old creaky wooden floors inside a new structure, though code requirements mean the interior will look different than the version Lexington residents grew up with. As of the most recent public update, the Candy Factory had not yet decided whether it will have any presence at this year's Barbecue Festival.
That split matters because it means the visible sign of recovery, cars moving on Main Street again, is running well ahead of the actual recovery of two of the block's longest-standing businesses. If you're walking past that corner expecting the old restaurant and the old candy shop to be back because the road is clear, you'll find an active construction site instead.
Why September 4 Was the Date That Mattered
The city did not pick September 4 at random. Uptown Lexington's executive director, Travis Stewart, pointed out that the reopening date landed on a First Friday, when businesses already plan to stay open later and draw a crowd. That gave the reopened block an immediate audience instead of a quiet reintroduction.
The bigger date on the calendar is October 24, when Uptown Lexington hosts its annual Barbecue Festival. The festival regularly closes an eight-block stretch of Main Street to vehicle traffic and draws well over 100,000 visitors into the same district that spent over three months detoured around a construction zone. Mayor Jason Hayes framed the reopening directly against that date, telling reporters the city wanted Main Street clear and welcoming in time for the festival crowd.
"We are ready for you here at Lexington. We want you to be here for the Barbecue Festival," Hayes said.
Seven weeks is not a long runway for businesses that just spent a summer with reduced traffic to restock, restaff, and prepare for the single biggest day of the year on their own street. It's enough time to get the road clear. It is not enough time to finish rebuilding a three-story restaurant.
What You'll Actually See Walking Main Street Right Now
If you haven't been up to that block since before the fire, here's what's changed as of early September. The road and sidewalks between Center and First Street are open to both cars and foot traffic again, which the city confirmed in its own release announcing the reopening. Businesses along the corridor, including the ones that took smoke and water damage, are operating. Where Shoto and The Candy Factory used to stand, you'll find cleared lots rather than storefronts, since demolition on both buildings wrapped up only in the weeks before the road reopened.
If you're craving Shoto specifically, the food truck has been the way to get it since mid-August, and it's worth checking their social channels for the current parking spot rather than assuming the old dining room is an option. The Candy Factory's timeline is less defined. Conrad has said the rebuild is a priority, but no reopening date has been set publicly, and the business's participation in this year's Barbecue Festival remains an open question as of the most recent reporting.
The Ornament That Keeps This From Fading Into Old News
One detail from Uptown Lexington's own announcements is worth knowing even if you never plan to buy anything from it. The organization had already decided back in February, months before the fire, to make its 2026 Christmas ornament a tribute to Shoto's 25th anniversary and its role hosting the city's first Lunar New Year festival. That plan didn't change after May. The ornament is still coming, and proceeds still go toward supporting the district's businesses.
It's a small thing, but it's the kind of detail that tells you how this particular fire is going to sit in Uptown's memory. Not as a headline that faded once the detour signs came down, but as something the district is choosing to mark on purpose, on a corner that is still, in a very literal sense, under construction.
If you live near Uptown, the honest version of "welcome back, Main Street" is that the road is open, most of the block is functioning, and two of its longest-tenured businesses are still years, not weeks, from looking the way you remember them. That's worth knowing before you plan a Barbecue Festival route through there next month, and it's worth knowing simply because it's true.
We work and live in these Charlotte-area communities every day, which means we notice the small shifts, like a street reopening before its anchors do, long before they show up anywhere else. If you're curious what's changing in your own neighborhood or want a straightforward read on where things stand, reach out to Maldonado Group. Obtener valor de la casa, o simplemente hablemos de su vecindario.
