Green Acres Mall New Restaurants in Valley Stream: Opening Plans

As of October 1, 2026, none of the restaurants announced for the Green Acres Mall redevelopment have opened. Newsday's September 30 update still lists all of them as incoming. The first opening with a specific target is Tony's Tacos, aimed at the second week of November. Macerich, the mall's owner, expects most of the other new tenants to open by Black Friday. The ShopRite isn't due until fall 2027.

So for anyone in Valley Stream, the useful thing to know isn't the list of names. It's the order they arrive in. The mall is turning to face the street one storefront at a time, and the restaurants come first.

Green Acres opened in 1956 as an open-air center and is facing outward again

Green Acres opened in 1956 as an open-air shopping center and was enclosed later. The current project adds back part of that original design. Newsday describes it as an open-air shopping streetscape built around the former Kohl's space. The vacant Sears and Sears Auto buildings have been torn down. Demolition started in May 2025, when the mall covered 2.1 million square feet, and finished in October 2025. That cleared room for 370,000 square feet of new development on the northeast side of the property.

The main design change is which way the new businesses face. According to Macerich, ShopRite, Sephora and the new restaurants will all face Sunrise Highway and have sidewalk entrances. Greater Long Island reports that the plan also includes landscaped green spaces and a new main entrance centered on the restaurant district. New pylon signs along Sunrise Highway will replace the existing ones and can show more of the center's businesses.

Reported costs vary. Newsday puts the partial revamp at $130 million to $150 million. Greater Long Island calls it a $400 million transformation of about 400,000 square feet. The two outlets may be measuring different scopes. Either way, Greater Long Island describes it as the largest redevelopment in the property's 70-year history.

Some businesses were already moving toward the street before the mall did. In early 2026, Chase opened a standalone branch at 330 W. Sunrise Highway with a drive-up ATM. It replaced the bank's Green Acres Mall and South Valley Stream branches.

Where each opening stands as of October 1, 2026

Green Acres' online dining directory shows each new restaurant as "Coming Soon." This is how the confirmed timing looks right now:

"Most by Black Friday" is a target for the whole group, not a promise for each restaurant. Newsday doesn't give a schedule tenant by tenant. Fogo de Chão's own press release in May announced the lease but gave no opening date.

Tony's Tacos opens first, and it's the local one

The first opening on the schedule comes from a Long Island owner, not a national chain. Greater Long Island names Italian-born chef Mike Scotto as the founder of Tony's Tacos. He describes the food as Italian flavors served in taco form.

Valley Stream residents who drive around Nassau may already know it. As of September 2026, Tony's had locations in Floral Park, Franklin Square, Garden City and Huntington. It also had a spot in the food court at Queens Center Mall in Elmhurst, which had opened recently. Green Acres is set to open in the second week of November. As of October 1, the mall's listing for Tony's still reads "Coming Soon."

Macerich has said the restaurants are there to bring people back to the mall more often:

"We really wanted to help drive traffic and get more frequent shoppers by elevating our dining options and bringing in some better restaurants."

That's Lee Ra Johnson, assistant vice president of outlet leasing at Macerich, speaking to Greater Long Island. She added that many of the brands were expected to open in the third or fourth quarter of 2026. Putting restaurants first, with doors facing the highway, fits that goal. The dining district is meant to draw people in before the grocery store arrives a year later.

The entertainment space is at Green Acres Commons

The new restaurants face Sunrise Highway from the mall side. Much of the new entertainment is going into Green Acres Commons, the shopping center next door that Macerich also owns.

Escapology leased 44,463 square feet at the Commons, according to LIBN. It will be the chain's second Long Island location, after Levittown. The company runs private, themed escape games. Teams find clues, crack codes and solve puzzles to finish a mission within an hour. No opening date has been announced. Launch Entertainment Park is also listed in the mall directory as "Coming Soon," with no date.

More leases keep getting approved. In August 2026, Miniso leased space at the Commons for what LIBN reported as its first Long Island store. LIBN put it at 7,200 square feet and Newsday at 7,250. Cava and Perfumes 4 U leased 2,100 and 1,080 square feet in the mall. None of the three had announced an opening date. Cava told Newsday it was too soon to share specific plans for Green Acres. The Town of Hempstead Industrial Development Agency then approved subleases on September 29 for True Religion at 2,818 square feet, Club Pilates at 1,797 square feet and Timberland at 1,608 square feet. The IDA has to approve every sublease at the property while its tax-break agreements are in effect. That's why each new tenant shows up as a separate news story.

Burlington also signed a lease for nearly 93,000 square feet in the former Kohl's space, which will be the second Burlington at the complex. That's a signed lease, not an open store.

Getting between the mall and the Commons

Johnson told Greater Long Island the two properties aren't easy to walk between. The free shuttle exists for that reason. Green Acres Connect has five stops around the mall and the Commons. The Valley Stream Herald reported that it started July 11 as a three-month pilot running Saturdays from 1 to 6 p.m. In August, management said it was still reviewing the numbers and hadn't decided whether to keep it.

The pilot's three months ended around October 11. The mall's shuttle page still advertises free rides every Saturday from 1 to 6 p.m. and has a live tracker. No announcement about extending it has been found, so check the tracker before planning a Saturday around it. Whether it continues may depend on traffic once Escapology and the restaurants open.

What opens after Black Friday

Some parts of the project are scheduled well past the holidays:

1. Sephora. A June 2025 Newsday report forecast spring 2027. That's older than the current Black Friday target, so the timing is uncertain.
2. Timberland. A company spokeswoman told Newsday the store will open next summer.
3. ShopRite. Macerich expects the full-service supermarket to open by fall 2027.
4. The whole project. Greater Long Island reported it is expected to wrap up by the end of 2027.

Valley Stream's village downtown is on a separate track. In May 2026, the state awarded the village $10 million through its Downtown Revitalization Initiative. The state said a strategic investment planning process would come after the award, so specific projects haven't been chosen yet. Long Island Business News reported that the village's application proposed using the money to support local businesses, a theater and arts space, pedestrian improvements and transit-oriented development.

For now, the first concrete change is in about six weeks. Tony's Tacos is expected to open at Green Acres in the second week of November, with the rest of the Sunrise Highway restaurants scheduled to follow by Black Friday.

If you own a home near Sunrise Highway and want to know how a busier, street-facing Green Acres might affect your plans for 2027, Jennifer Scala can go over what's opening nearby and what's happening in your part of Valley Stream. Schedule a free consultation.