Peaceful Grounds Coffee Company spent its last week in Manhattan the way it had spent most of its run: throwing events. A yoga and reiki night on a Tuesday. Bridgerton trivia on a Thursday. A psychic reading on Friday night, the kind of thing that only works in a space people already trust enough to sit still in for an hour. Then, on Sunday, March 29, the doors at 25626 S. Gougar Road closed for good, and the owners posted that they'd be back somewhere else soon, location to be announced.
Nobody's announced it yet.
If you've lived in Manhattan long enough to have opinions about where to get coffee, you already know this story in outline. What's less obvious, unless you've been paying attention to which areas of town have seen recent business changes, is that the closing offers one snapshot of how Manhattan's commercial map is changing.
Peaceful Grounds' former location
Peaceful Grounds opened in December 2024 in Manhattan Station, the retail node built around Gougar and Sweedler, a couple of miles from the older two-block stretch most longtime residents still think of as downtown. The family behind it, siblings Holly Barajas and Jonathan Tough with their mother Cheryl and stepfather Paul Wellman, had grown up around here (Barajas and Tough in New Lenox, Wellman in Mokena, all three Lincoln-Way Central alumni).
They didn't stay a plain coffee shop for long. By January 2025 they'd built out The Manhattan Speakeasy inside the same space, a Prohibition-themed lounge with 1920s murals, whiskey signage, and a menu that leaned into fig and prosciutto flatbread and charcuterie boards with smoked duck and salmon. The soft opening landed during a summer party with live music and a cornhole tournament. It read, at the time, like exactly the kind of concept a small town hopes will take hold: something a little more ambitious than the usual, built by people who actually lived there.
Fourteen months later it was gone, with the owners saying only that Manhattan is home and that a new chapter was starting somewhere else. No address has surfaced since.
Business additions in the historic core
As Peaceful Grounds closed in Manhattan Station, State Street and North Street, the old commercial core a couple of miles away, kept adding names.
Arrowhead Smoke Works, the barbecue spot at 195 S. State St. run by Mike Bacon, was the subject of a Village trustee vote on whether it could keep a cargo container on site to store its meat smoker.
A few doors down on North Street, Soka Japanese Hibachi and Sushi moved into 340 W. North St., adding a full sushi and hibachi menu to a stretch of downtown that hadn't had one before. Southside Tobacco & Vape, an existing State Street business, expanded sideways rather than closing, with owner Scott Coveny and his fiancée Linsey Piszczek launching their own bath and body line and putting it on the shelves next to the usual inventory. And KeKe's Donuts, built by young entrepreneur Kailyn Schuster, made its debut through the town's Young Entrepreneur Market, the kind of small, homegrown opening that doesn't make Patch headlines on its own but adds up.
These examples show different kinds of recent business activity in Manhattan.
The Village's downtown master plan
Back in the fall of 2023, Manhattan's Village Board unanimously approved a downtown master plan that had been in the works since August 2022, built around stakeholder sessions, meetings with local taxing bodies including the Manhattan Park District and the Manhattan-Elwood Library District, and an open house held right before the vote. Mayor Mike Adrieansen called it a significant step toward improving retail and entertainment amenities for residents. Village Administrator Nick Palmer said private businesses had already started asking about opportunities in the downtown area before the plan was even finalized.
The plan targeted beautification and safety measures for the historic core, and specifically called out reducing truck traffic on Route 52, the road that runs directly through the State and North Street blocks. It did not mention Manhattan Station or the Gougar corridor. The plan focuses on the historic core, while the examples above describe business changes in both areas.
For residents near either stretch, the plan's stated focus is the historic core. The changes described here offer a snapshot, not a forecast, and the closure at Manhattan Station does not by itself establish what will happen at that location next.
Beyond the downtown areas
Manhattan also has amenities beyond its downtown areas. The Wauponsee Glacial Trail runs right past town on its way from Joliet down to the Kankakee River at Custer Park, and the section south of Manhattan connects directly into the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie trail system, managed by the U.S. Forest Service, where the reintroduced bison herd roams. That stretch of crushed limestone trail has been there since Will County's Forest Preserve District finished acquiring the old rail corridor in 2016, and it will keep drawing walkers and cyclists out of town on weekends regardless of which storefronts come and go in town.
That's worth remembering when a business you liked closes without warning. The parts of daily life that took decades to build (the trail, the park district, the library district that's been in these master plan conversations from the start) aren't going anywhere. The retail mix around them is still being written, block by block.
Watching for the next chapter
If Peaceful Grounds does resurface somewhere in Manhattan, its next location has not been announced. The Village's plan described here focuses on the historic core, but it does not say where the business may relocate.
If you're thinking about what comes next for your own address in Manhattan, whether that's watching how a specific block is trending or figuring out what a home near either downtown is actually worth right now, Michelle Arseneau Group has spent enough time in the Chicago Southland to read these shifts before they show up on a for sale sign. Reach out when you're ready to talk through what your home is worth in a town where the commercial mix continues to evolve.
