A Sandwich Shop Is Opening at Midlothian Depot Before Whole Foods Does

For close to two years, the corner of Midlothian Turnpike and Alverser Drive has been the kind of construction site you stop actively noticing. The fence went up, then the steel, then five buildings with blank glass where storefronts should be. If you drive that stretch on your way to Chesterfield Towne Center or back from Bon Air, you've watched it sit there through two winters without much to show for it beyond signage promising a Whole Foods that never seemed to arrive.

That changes on September 25. But not with the grocery store everyone's been waiting for. It changes with a sandwich shop.

The First Open Door Belongs to Cheba Hut

Cheba Hut, the counterculture sub chain known for its cannabis-themed branding and a mascot named "Flip the Bird," opens its first Virginia location at 1124 Steam Ave on Friday, September 25, 2026, with a ribbon cutting at 10 a.m. and a swag bag for the first 100 people through the door. Once open, it will run Sunday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 11 p.m. and Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to midnight. It's the eighth location for its franchise group, WAHi Brands, and the company already has a Colonial Heights location planned for early 2027.

That makes Cheba Hut the first confirmed, dated, doors-open business anywhere in the Midlothian Depot development. Not Whole Foods. Not J.Crew. A sandwich shop that needs a bar, a mural, and a walk-in cooler beat out an 87,500-square-foot mixed-use project's namesake anchor to the finish line.

The Anchor Is Running Behind Schedule It Set Itself

Whole Foods would be Chesterfield County's first location for the chain, and it's the reason this project exists in its current form. SJC Ventures, the Atlanta-based developer, confirmed Whole Foods as the anchor back in January 2025, when the company said it planned to break ground on the site that week. At the time, SJC's own leasing materials projected commercial shell space would go to tenants in the third quarter of 2026, with the full development opening in the second quarter of 2027.

By February 2026, that timeline had compressed. SJC principal Jeff Garrison told Richmond BizSense that construction on the grocery shell and other commercial buildings was nearly finished, and that his company expected to start turning spaces over to tenants that spring. His estimate for when the first businesses would actually open: this fall, at the earliest.

Seven months later, "this fall" has produced exactly one open business, and it isn't the grocery store. The county issued Whole Foods a tenant-upfit permit in February 2026 to begin its interior buildout, but no one, including the retailer itself, has published a firm opening date. A store-opening tracking site currently guesses autumn 2026 and adds the caveat that the date is subject to change.

Run the math and the delay makes more sense. Whole Foods alone will occupy 36,000 of the development's 87,500 square feet of retail space, better than four out of every ten square feet in the whole project. A grocery store buildout means walk-in refrigeration, produce cases, a bakery counter, and a full commercial kitchen. A sandwich shop needs a fraction of that.

What's Actually Confirmed, and What's Still a Sign in a Window

Here's the tenant roster SJC has announced for Midlothian Depot, and where each one stood as of the most recent reporting:

Cooper's Hawk Winery & Restaurant was part of the original lineup and isn't anymore. The chain exited the project following a legal dispute with the developer that has since been settled, and its space is one of roughly 5,000 square feet Garrison said was still unleased as of early February 2026.

Why the Buildout Isn't Happening in the Order You'd Expect

It's tempting to assume a development like this opens the way a mall does, with the anchor cutting the ribbon first and the smaller shops filling in around it. Midlothian Depot is showing the opposite. The five commercial buildings went up together as shells, general contractor L.F. Jennings and architect Dynamik Design working from one site plan. But once a shell is framed, each tenant's interior buildout is its own separate contract, on its own permit, moving at its own pace.

That's why Lovesac's permit records, filed in October 2025 for a buildout at 1021 Steam Ave, showed a status of "corrections required" as of that filing, a normal and unglamorous stage most commercial buildouts pass through. It's also why Warby Parker ended up in a spot originally set aside for MyEyeDr. Leasing plans shift even after signage goes up. A signed lease is not the same thing as a working cash register, and the businesses with the simplest build requirements are naturally going to open first.

"We have a number of people we're talking to and leases that will come together," Garrison told BizSense when Whole Foods was first confirmed as the anchor.

That was January 2025. Twenty months later, the roster is mostly locked but the doors are opening one at a time, on each tenant's own schedule.

The Townhomes Are Running on a Different Clock Entirely

Retail isn't the only piece of Midlothian Depot, and it isn't moving in sync with the residential side either. Eastwood Homes is building 60 for-sale townhomes along Old Buckingham Road, three to four stories tall and ranging from 1,800 to 2,400 square feet. On-site signage lists pricing in the high $600,000s. As of the March 2026 BizSense report, construction on the units was expected to begin within weeks, with completion targeted for late summer or early fall, which puts the likely finish line right around now.

The full project carries an estimated $100 million price tag, with more than $70 million of that tied to the commercial buildings alone. The 13-acre site itself sold for $16 million in 2023, a year after Chesterfield's Board of Supervisors approved the rezoning that made the whole thing possible in 2022.

What This Means If You've Been Watching That Corner

If you live near Midlothian Turnpike and Alverser Drive, the practical takeaway isn't "everything opens this fall." It's that individual tenants are opening on individual timelines, and the businesses requiring the least buildout are going first. Cheba Hut on September 25 is confirmed. Whole Foods is still a guess, even from the sites tracking it closely. Everything in between, from Lovesac to Dave's Hot Chicken to the townhomes going up on Old Buckingham Road, is somewhere on that same spectrum between permitted and finished.

For a project two years in the making, that's not a delay. It's just how five separate buildings and sixty separate townhomes actually get built, one contractor and one permit at a time, even when they all sit behind the same construction fence.

If you're keeping an eye on how new development like this shapes property values and buyer interest in Midlothian, Pretty Properties tracks these changes as part of everyday work in this market. Reach out any time you want a local read on what a project like Midlothian Depot means for your street, your search, or your home's value.