Ask anyone in Gretna what's new in town and you'll get the same answer within about ten seconds: Buc-ee's. Everyone has heard the name. Fewer people have noticed that nothing has been built yet, that the earliest realistic groundbreaking is still months away, and that the store itself is not expected to open its doors until late 2028. The headline project that everyone associates with Gretna's growth is, as of this August, a signed incentive agreement and a patch of undeveloped land at the southeast corner of Interstate 80 and Highway 31.
Meanwhile, something quieter and already finished has reshaped a normal Tuesday night in town. A new Italian restaurant just passed its one-year mark. A fine-dining spot opened near the golf course. A longtime dive bar reopened under new ownership. None of that required a state incentive program or a multi-year construction timeline. It just happened, on ordinary commercial lots, while the bigger story was still working its way through city council readings.
That gap between what people talk about and what actually opened is the real Gretna story this year.
The Buc-ee's Timeline, Since Everyone Asks
Here's what's actually been confirmed, in order. The city announced in January 2026 that it was working with Buc-ee's on a first Nebraska location inside the state-approved Good Life District. City Administrator Paula Dennison was blunt about why Nebraska landed on the company's radar at all, crediting the district's sales tax incentive:
"Without it, I'm not convinced that they would have looked at Nebraska."
The Good Life District program cuts the state sales tax within the designated zone roughly in half, from 5.5 percent to 2.75 percent, with the difference recaptured to fund the development itself. Zoning cleared in May. Then on July 29, the city council approved an agreement providing Buc-ee's up to $32 million in tax-based reimbursements, tied to a project now estimated at more than $107.8 million across 27.8 acres, with plans for a 74,000-square-foot store, 108 fueling positions, at least 20 EV chargers, and around 175 full-time jobs starting between $19 and $22 an hour.
What that money doesn't buy is a shorter wait. Reporting after the July vote indicated the formal groundbreaking may not happen until sometime in 2027, with construction wrapping up in late 2028. Mayor Mike Evans has called Gretna's spot along I-80 "the perfect stop for travelers across the country," and he's not wrong about the location. He's just describing a store that's still two years from serving its first customer.
What Actually Opened While Everyone Was Watching The Groundbreaking
Here's the part that didn't need a state incentive program.
Basil's Italian & Ice Cream, at 16918 Morgan Avenue, quietly hit its one-year anniversary in late April. It opened in April 2025 as a scratch-kitchen Italian spot with a full ice cream counter, and in the year since it's added a bar area for drink specials and, according to regulars, keno. The anniversary weekend brought the kind of promotion that only makes sense for a place that's become a habit for people nearby: half off ice cream with any pizza, pasta, or sandwich purchase.
Marrow opened at 17870 Oakmont Drive, just south of Tiburon Golf Club, from the same ownership group behind Railcar Modern American Kitchen, Timber Wood-Fired Grill, and Pasta Amore. The concept leans into slower, home-style cooking dressed up for a dinner-out crowd, and its arrival gave Gretna its first true fine-dining option that isn't a drive into Omaha.
Kathy's Bar & Grill reopened this month at 115 North McKenna Avenue, in the space long known as the Wagon Wheel and more recently Brag N Rights, under new ownership. The kitchen hadn't opened as of mid-August, but the new owners have already teased smash burgers on the menu, which is the kind of detail that tells you more about a neighborhood bar's next chapter than any press release could.
Hawaiian Bros Island Grill landed at 16131 Stevens Point Circle back in the spring of 2025, bringing plate lunch service, huli-hui chicken, and molokai chicken to a stretch of Gretna that didn't have much beyond fast food before it arrived.
Four openings, four different corners of town, none of them tied to a Good Life District incentive or a multi-year construction schedule. That's the actual restaurant story in Gretna this year.
| What's changed | Status as of August 2026 |
|---|---|
| Basil's Italian & Ice Cream | Open since April 2025, celebrated one-year anniversary |
| Marrow | Open, near Tiburon Golf Club |
| Kathy's Bar & Grill | Reopened under new ownership, kitchen still coming |
| Hawaiian Bros Island Grill | Open since March 2025 |
| Buc-ee's | Incentive approved, groundbreaking likely 2027, opening ~2028 |
The Weekly Rhythm That Doesn't Wait On Any Of It
None of the big-ticket news changes what Saturday mornings look like at the Gretna Farmers Market, held at City Hall on North McKenna Avenue through the growing season. It's the kind of recurring, unglamorous fixture that doesn't make headlines but keeps a downtown functioning while bigger projects work through zoning.
The same goes for Gretna Days, which ran July 24 through 26 this year. Friday brought the free outdoor movie night and fireworks. Saturday was the parade down McKenna Avenue. Sunday closed things out with a car show on McKenna, a community picnic and carnival games at Peterson Park, and a softball tournament for anyone still standing after two days of festival food. It's the town's actual annual tradition, run by a local foundation, and it happened exactly as scheduled, just three days before the city council approved Buc-ee's $32 million incentive package on July 29.
What This Actually Tells You
If you live in Gretna, the useful distinction isn't optimism versus skepticism about growth. It's timing. Buc-ee's is real, funded, and moving through the process that big commercial projects move through. But the thing that changed how you spend a Friday night this year already happened, on a much smaller scale, at a handful of addresses on Morgan Avenue and McKenna Avenue. The mega-project is worth watching. It's just not the reason your dinner options got better in 2026.
If you're weighing what this town looks like a few years from now, once Buc-ee's is actually open and drawing the traffic officials are projecting, that's exactly the kind of long-view question Selling Sisters helps Gretna buyers and sellers think through. Schedule a consultation and we'll walk you through what's confirmed, what's still speculative, and what it might mean for your own plans in this part of the metro.
