If you have lived in Briargate for more than a few years, you know the local narrative that outsiders repeat: it is the master-planned north side, the Promenade, the mall, the chains. That story is aging out. The summer of 2026 is the clearest evidence yet that the square mile around Briargate Parkway and North Academy has quietly turned into one of the most active experience corridors in Colorado Springs, with a working aquarium inside the mall, a second burger chain opening rather than closing, and free live music running every Friday within walking distance of dinner.
Here is what is actually happening in the neighborhood this season, and how the pieces fit together for a resident weekend.
The mall is not dying, it is repurposing
For years the running assumption about Chapel Hills Mall was decline. That assumption is now measurably wrong. After COVID, general manager and head of security Ed Beane lost about nine tenants and set out to plot the mall's future, working to keep it going through the ups and downs of the past few years. His strategy, in his own words, was to prioritize experiences over retail spaces and go after entertainment-type venues.
The anchor of that pivot opened this spring. Colorado Springs is getting its first interactive aquarium. Jungle Reef will open March 20 inside Chapel Hills Mall, introducing an interactive aquarium experience built around education, conservation and close-up encounters with marine and exotic animals. The address is the lower level of Chapel Hills Mall, 1710 Briargate Blvd., and if you have not been yet, they are located behind the Dick's Sporting Goods on the first floor.
The scale is bigger than a rainy-day gimmick. There will be 87 different types of species in the aquarium, and 55 of the exhibits will incorporate animals that live on land. The aquarium offers tons of interactions with the animals, including touching and feeding the stingrays, feeding the tortoises, going inside the parakeet room, and more. For grandparents hosting visiting family, or for the standing question of what to do with kids on a hot afternoon when Palmer Park is baking, that is a legitimately new answer inside the neighborhood.
The new food arrival worth walking to
The other headline opening is smaller in footprint but larger in daily rotation. Shake Shack opened at 7465 N. Academy Boulevard in Briargate on Thursday, May 14, 2026. This is Shake Shack's second Colorado Springs location. The restaurant is in the Shops at Falcon Landing shopping center in Briargate.
Geography matters here. The Springs' first Shake Shack opened in late 2023 roughly four miles north at 9723 Federal Drive in the InterQuest area. For anyone living south of Briargate Parkway who was not going to drive to InterQuest for a burger, this closes the gap. It also fits a broader pattern: national operators are still choosing Briargate over other Colorado Springs submarkets when they open a second location, which tells you something about the daytime population and disposable spend here that you will not read in a demographic profile.
If Shake Shack is not your speed, the block already carries options that reward a slow evening:
| Spot | What it is | Why locals go |
|---|---|---|
| MilkShake Factory | Fourth-generation chocolatiers making hand-crafted milkshakes and small-batch chocolates | Just marked one year in Briargate this April |
| Nana's Dim Sum & Dumpling | Soup dumplings, bao buns, pan-fried dumplings with plenty of vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free selections | Group-friendly menu at 1895 Democracy Point |
| Urban Egg | Casual dining with gourmet pancakes, extensive sweet and savory options and great cocktails | Third-Thursday dinner service in summer (see below) |
| My Cellar Wine Bar | Wine flights, community events and live music | Low-key date night |
| Chicken Salad Chick | Located at 9291 Highland Ridge Heights near the Promenade Shops at Briargate | Fast lunch after the trail |
Fridays have quietly become a scene
The single most underused local asset this summer sits outside on a patio at the Promenade. Music Under the Mountains runs Fridays June 26 through July 31, 5 to 7 p.m., on the Pikes Peak Patio next to Ted's Montana Grill at The Promenade Shops at Briargate, 1685 Briargate Pkwy.
The lineup is entirely local and entirely free:
- June 26: The Martini Shot
- July 3: The Runners
- July 10: Final Eyes
- July 17: Mimic
- July 24: Grizzly Gopher
- July 31: SofaKillers
You can confirm the current week on thepromenadeshopsatbriargate.com/events. The practical read on this is that a two-hour window from 5 to 7 slots cleanly before a dinner reservation, and the patio is a short walk from every restaurant on the table above. Take a lawn chair. The pavement holds heat late in July, so shade goes fast.
For anyone who prefers dinner as the event rather than the after, Urban Egg is running a parallel series inside. On June 18 from 5 to 8 p.m., Urban Egg's Breakfast for Dinner takes over select locations including Briargate and University Village, with $10 cocktails including Espresso Martinis and Watermelon Mojitos. It runs every third Thursday through September. Brunch for dinner is a gimmick until you have tried the chili crunch eggs on a Thursday when you did not feel like cooking.
The community calendar past July
The summer does not end when the concert series wraps. Two dates on the neighborhood calendar are worth blocking now.
The first is a rescue-dog event that quietly draws a big crowd. National Mill Dog Rescue's Festival in the Bark, with adoptable dogs, local vendors and more, runs 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at John Venezia Park, 3555 Briargate Parkway. If you have walked the perimeter of Venezia recently, you already know how flat and shaded the north lawn is, which is why this event lands there instead of downtown.
The second is the neighborhood's own festival. Briarfest, sponsored by St. Gabriel the Archangel Catholic Church, brings carnival-style entertainment to the church grounds at 8755 Scarborough Drive, kicking off Friday evening and running through the weekend with free admission. Expect carnival rides, classic festival games, live music from local bands, food trucks, and a wine and beer tent for those 21 and over. The event's own framing captures why it exists in the first place: those who live in the Briargate and northern Powers regions have long needed a celebration they can call their own.
That last line is worth sitting with. Briarfest was built on the observation that Briargate residents were driving downtown for their community rituals. Six years later the neighborhood no longer has to.
What this actually tells you about the neighborhood
Pull the events, the openings, and the pivot at the mall together and a pattern surfaces that does not show up in a listings feed. Briargate is not becoming denser or older or louder. It is becoming an experience-anchored suburb, which is a different animal from either the drive-to-dinner suburb it was in 2015 or the amenity-listed master plan it gets marketed as. With some traditional retailers looking for the exit doors at shopping malls across the country or vanishing completely, malls can be forced to evolve or die, and change has become the norm at Chapel Hills Mall. The neighborhood is choosing evolve.
That has knock-on effects on a Saturday. A resident weekend now looks less like "drive to Old Colorado City for a walk, drive back for dinner" and more like a loop that starts at John Venezia Park in the morning, lands at Jungle Reef when the sun gets high, catches Music Under the Mountains at 5, and finishes at a table on the patio at Nana's or Amore Italian Grille. The whole loop fits inside a three-mile radius.
You did not need to move for that to be true. You just needed to notice.
Ready to keep exploring the neighborhood?
If Briargate's next chapter interests you as more than a weekend calendar, Sedoryk Properties tracks what the corridor between Chapel Hills and the Promenade means for the homes around it. Let's connect when you're ready to talk about your place in it.
