"Weather is a huge factor for us," Justin McDonald said. "I try to open Thursdays and Fridays in Forest Grove, but the weather sometimes doesn't let that happen." McDonald runs Franko's Hot Dogs, the food cart known around Forest Grove for Thumann's all-beef dogs and a wasabi-topped specialty called the Wasabi Doggie. On July 18, in the middle of National Hot Dog Month, he opened his first brick-and-mortar location at 137 SE Third Avenue in downtown Hillsboro.
McDonald said the move to Hillsboro was driven by the need for a permanent kitchen where the business could produce its signature mustard, support its catering operations and keep more consistent hours year-round, since weather had always been a factor for a cart that opened Thursdays and Fridays in Forest Grove. He isn't the first to make this exact move. Franko's isn't the first Forest Grove business to make its way to downtown Hillsboro. 3 Goats Vineyard and Winery moved its tasting room, Urban River Spirits opened Washington County's first zero-proof lounge last year, and boutique Willow & Ash recently opened a Hillsboro location.
Four businesses relocating from the same neighboring downtown in roughly a year is not a coincidence you'd notice from a single news alert. It only shows up if you line the stories up side by side, which is what happened here.
The count so far
Here's what that migration actually looks like when you name names:
- 3 Goats Vineyard and Winery: opened a tasting room in Downtown Forest Grove in 2023, then in May 2025 moved into Downtown Hillsboro.
- Urban River Spirits: opened as Washington County's first zero-proof lounge, giving downtown Hillsboro a nonalcoholic bar option it didn't previously have.
- Willow & Ash: the boutique added a Hillsboro location after building its base in Forest Grove.
- Franko's Hot Dogs: went from cart to kitchen at 137 SE Third Ave, opening July 18, 2026.
Each of those reads as its own local story. Together, they describe a pattern: Hillsboro's Cultural Arts District has become the place where Forest Grove businesses go once they outgrow a cart or a tasting-room-only setup.
What Forest Grove didn't have
McDonald tried to open a brick-and-mortar restaurant in Forest Grove and pursued several downtown storefronts, but none worked out. That detail matters more than it looks. It means the move to Hillsboro wasn't a business chasing a trendier zip code. It was a business that tried the hometown option first and hit a wall of unavailable or unworkable space.
What Hillsboro had instead was both storefronts and direct financial help to fill them. McDonald credited the city of Hillsboro, saying the business was awarded a grant that helped with the plumbing, since the building needed to be up to code for a grease trap and similar improvements. A few blocks away, a grant from the city of Hillsboro made possible the overhead heaters and clear vinyl pulley panels that let Restaurant AMA reopen its rooftop this year as an enclosed, weather-flexible space. That rooftop is now home to a tiki-inspired pop-up bar the owner calls a "Tik-Easy," run by Jill Craig, who also operates Forest Grove's Urban Decanter.
None of this is charity. Hillsboro designated Washington County's first Cultural Arts District in 2019, and it was also the first city in Oregon to create a dedicated staff position to work with the district's artists, makers, and businesses. The grants aren't random goodwill. They're a district with a job title and a budget line actively trying to fill its own storefronts, and Forest Grove businesses without a downtown to expand into have been the ones saying yes.
The reason a bet on Hillsboro makes sense
Grants explain why a business could afford to move. They don't explain why it made sense to move here specifically instead of, say, Beaverton. That answer sits in the calendar.
Downtown Hillsboro doesn't have one flagship weekly event. It has several, stacked so tightly that a new restaurant on SE Second or Third Avenue can count on built-in foot traffic almost every week from May through October:
| Day | Recurring event | Running since |
|---|---|---|
| Wednesdays (select dates) | Reed's Crossing Farmers Market at Tamarack Park | New for 2026 |
| Thursdays, 2nd and 4th | The Streets at Tanasbourne Market | New for 2026 |
| Saturdays, 9am-1pm | Downtown Hillsboro Farmers Market | 1982 |
| Sundays, 10am-2pm | Orenco Station Market | 2003 |
| Tuesdays, 5-8:30pm, through late August | Hillsboro Tuesday Night Market | Annual summer season |
| First Tuesday of the month | Hillsboro Art Walk, overlapping the Night Market in summer | 20th anniversary Sept 1, 2026 |
The Downtown Hillsboro Market, a tradition since 1982, sees locals flock to Main Street for farm-fresh fruits and vegetables, handmade goods, activities and music. New this year, an additional market popped up at The Streets at Tanasbourne, running from 4 to 8pm on the second and fourth Thursdays starting June 11, with Allie Avenue closing between the parking lot entrance and the parking garage entrance for vendors. The Tuesday Night Market is its own production entirely. Held weekly throughout the summer, it transforms Main Street and the Avenues into a pedestrian-only plaza filled with live music, local vendors, farm-fresh produce, artisan goods, and food and drink from area food carts and downtown restaurants. It's operated by the local nonprofit Hillsboro Tuesday Marketplace, Inc., and it overlaps with Art Walk during the summer months, which also offers a vendor application opportunity for that specific overlap.
Layer those on top of each other and a Forest Grove restaurant weighing a move doesn't need to guess whether people will walk past its door. It knows they will, on a schedule, most weeks of the season.
A city that just turned 150 has extra reasons to invest
Hillsborough, later renamed and shortened to Hillsboro, received its original City Charter from the State Legislature in 1876. That makes 2026 the city's sesquicentennial, and the calendar shows it. The clearest example landed on the Fourth of July. This year's Rotary-run parade carried the theme "Hillsboro Turns 150: A Star-Spangled Celebration," tying the holiday tradition to the city's sesquicentennial, a tradition first held in 1926 and carried by the Hillsboro Rotary Club since the 1960s. Organizers signed up 81 parade entries this year, with local businesses, nonprofits and community groups lining the route.
The parade also gave the city a chance to put a face on its own history. This year's grand marshal, Scott Kellar, was born at Tuality Hospital in 1967, returned to his hometown in 1997 to help open Century High School, and has served there as a school-to-career specialist and head boys basketball coach ever since. He passed 400 career wins this past season and was named Pacific Conference Coach of the Year.
A milestone birthday doesn't cause a business relocation on its own. But it does explain why a city already running grant programs for storefront build-outs has extra motivation this particular year to make sure its Cultural Arts District looks occupied and lively for its own anniversary photos. The grants to Franko's and to Restaurant AMA's rooftop aren't isolated. They're part of a city spending a milestone year on its own downtown.
What this means if you're already here
None of this requires a special occasion to go see. The Downtown Hillsboro Farmers Market keeps its Saturday morning slot on Main Street through October. The Tuesday Night Market has a few weeks left in its run before it wraps for the season in late August. The Art Walk's regular first-Tuesday rhythm builds toward something bigger on September 1, when it marks its 20th anniversary.
What's changed is which storefronts you'll pass on the way. Chicatanas now occupies 159 SE 2nd Ave with regional Mexican dishes and handmade tortillas. Restaurant AMA's rooftop runs its tiki pop-up on Fridays and Saturdays, with weekend brunch from 10am to 2pm. Franko's has a permanent kitchen two blocks over. None of those existed a year ago, and all four of the Forest Grove transplants named here landed within a few blocks of each other, inside a district the city built specifically to keep filling.
If you've noticed downtown feeling different this summer, that's not atmosphere. That's four specific businesses making the same calculated bet, backed by grants and a weekly crowd that shows up on a schedule.
If you're weighing what a home near this kind of walkable, actively-invested downtown is worth this year, or just want a local read on how a neighborhood's day-to-day energy tends to hold up over time, TK Real Estate Group knows this stretch of Hillsboro block by block. Schedule a free consultation with Tamiko K. Warren to talk through what's actually happening on the ground here, not just what the listing photos show.
