Have You Noticed What's Going In Next to the Publix on Furys Ferry?

If you drive Furys Ferry Road often enough, you stop seeing it. The same Publix. The same run of fast food. The same familiar rhythm of red lights between Washington Road and the river. Then sometime this summer, a new sign went up in the small block past the Publix, and a name appeared that wasn't there before: Griffin's Steakhouse.

It opened July 10. If you missed the sign, you've probably still noticed the construction fencing coming down piece by piece along that stretch, or the new storefronts filling in around a coffeehouse that wasn't there a year ago. What's happening at that address is not a single restaurant opening. It's a pattern, and the pattern says something about where this corner of Martinez is headed that a single new sign never could.

A Development Built Differently Than the Rest of the Road

Most of what lines Furys Ferry Road follows the same logic: a national chain leases a pad site, builds to spec, opens. That's how you get the McDonald's at 381 Furys Ferry Road, the Papa John's and Little Caesars scattered along the corridor, the drive-through rhythm most residents know without thinking about it.

West Lake Commons was planned differently from the start. The development sits on about 5.7 acres and totals roughly 40,000 square feet, built out in phases rather than all at once, with the first phase complete and additional retail space still being leased. Commercial listings describe it as a high-end retail project positioned along what they call the fast-growing Furys Ferry Road corridor, and the daily traffic count on that stretch runs around 20,500 vehicles. That's not a number most residents think about day to day, but it's the number a developer looks at before deciding whether a curated, sit-down-restaurant-and-boutique mix can survive next to a road full of drive-throughs.

The Sisters Behind Griffin's Steakhouse

Griffin's Steakhouse occupies units 6 and 7 at 1040 West Lake Commons Drive. It's co-owned by sisters Diane McCall and Paula Duncan, who named the restaurant after Griffin, their maiden name. The space runs about 3,500 square feet with seating for roughly 80 guests. Lunch leans toward sandwiches, salads, and appetizers. Dinner centers on steak, rounded out by two chicken dishes, one fish dish, and one pasta dish alongside a fuller appetizer menu.

What makes this worth noting isn't just that a family opened a steakhouse. It's where they chose to open it. The same address, 1040 West Lake Commons Drive, is also home to Ironwood Tavern, another full-service American restaurant. Whichever way those two spaces relate to each other, the developer's own leasing materials confirm that two separate restaurant concepts sit among the confirmed tenants at West Lake Commons, alongside the boutiques and service shops. That's not what you'd expect from a corridor built mostly around drive-throughs. It suggests the people leasing space here are betting on residents who want to park once and stay for dinner, not residents grabbing a bag through a window on the way home.

A Coffeehouse Betting on This Corner a Third Time

The most telling addition might be the smallest one. Rooted Coffeehouse opened a West Lake location at 1030 West Lake Commons Drive, and it isn't the operator's first stop. Rooted already runs locations at Riverwood and at Evans Towne Center, two spots that have had time to prove themselves as everyday gathering places. Choosing West Lake as a third location means the people behind Rooted looked at this new, still-filling-in development and decided it was similar enough to those two proven spots to expand into, rather than waiting to see if the corner caught on first.

That's a different kind of signal than a single restaurant sign. It's an operator with two working locations elsewhere placing the same bet a third time, in a spot that didn't exist yet two years ago.

The Rest of the Roster So Far

West Lake Commons is still filling in. As of mid-2026, about 11,600 square feet of retail space across five separate units remained listed for lease, which is why some storefronts in that block still sit dark while others are already open for business. Even so, the confirmed lineup gives a clear sense of what this corner is becoming:

• The Swank Company, a women's clothing and accessories boutique at 1020 West Lake Commons Drive, part of a five-location Georgia chain
• Posh Tots
• Kettle Creek Creamery
• Cucumber & Mint
• Oxygen

Add Griffin's Steakhouse, Ironwood Tavern, and Rooted Coffeehouse to that list and you get a small, deliberate mix: a steakhouse, a tavern, a coffeehouse and bistro, a boutique, a children's shop, a creamery, and a fitness concept, all within the same short block. That's not the tenant mix of a strip mall filling vacancies. It's the tenant mix of a place trying to give people a reason to walk from one storefront to the next.

The Corridor's Last Experiment Didn't Survive

None of this means every upscale bet on Furys Ferry Road pays off. Earth Fare, the natural foods grocer that once operated at 368 Furys Ferry Road, has since closed, and its old listing now reads simply as closed. What moved into that same address says almost as much as the closure itself: French Market Grille West now operates at 368 Furys Ferry Road today. The corridor didn't reject an elevated concept outright, it swapped a specialty grocery model for a full-service restaurant, the same category doing most of the anchoring at West Lake Commons right now.

That history is worth holding onto while you watch West Lake Commons fill in. This isn't a corridor where anything with a nicer sign automatically works. It's a corridor where restaurants have tended to hold on longer than specialty retail. What makes the current run of openings different is that it isn't one gamble. It's several, happening at the same address, at roughly the same time, backed by an operator who's already proven the model twice elsewhere and a pair of sisters opening under their own family name rather than a franchise banner.

What This Means If You Already Live Here

If you're a longtime Martinez resident, you likely already have your go-to dinner spots further down Furys Ferry Road: Cucina 503 for Italian, French Market Grille West, Mi Rancho for a casual Mexican night. Those places built the corridor's reputation as somewhere worth eating, one restaurant at a time, over years.

West Lake Commons is trying to build that same reputation in months instead of years, in a single concentrated block instead of scattered along a few miles of road. Over the next year, the remaining unleased space in the development will tell you whether the bet holds. For now, what's already open gives Martinez something it didn't quite have before: a compact cluster near the Publix at Furys Ferry Plaza where you can grab a coffee at Rooted, pick up something at Swank, and sit down for steak at Griffin's without getting back in the car in between.

That's a small shift, but it's the kind that changes how a neighborhood actually gets used day to day. Not because a real estate listing says so, but because the people opening businesses here are voting with their leases, and for the first time in a while, several of them are voting for Furys Ferry Road at once.

If you're curious how developments like this shape what a Martinez address is actually worth to live near, or if you're weighing a move to this corner of Columbia County, Tonda Booker Real Estate Group knows this stretch of Furys Ferry Road block by block. Let's start a conversation.