"It's just, 43 years in this building is a long time, and it's been a lot of work," Jennifer Conley told KXLY as customers filled the parking lot at Conley's Place for its last meals. The building at 12622 E. Sprague Ave. has been sold. A new restaurant is expected there, but nobody has said which one.
That empty storefront fits the pattern on this stretch of the Valley right now. Most of what changed along Sprague and Appleway since August happened inside buildings that already had a long history. Only one business built from the ground up. The biggest project of the season is a grocery store going into a big-box space that has sat empty for seven years, and as of early October it still hasn't opened.
Where each address stands as of October 4, 2026:
- 12622 E. Sprague Ave. Conley's Place, formerly Pioneer Pies, is closed. The building has sold and the next restaurant hasn't been named.
- 13414 E. Sprague Ave. The former Shopko is becoming a Trader Joe's. The company's store page still says "Coming Soon!"
- 14816 E. Sprague Ave. Kindler's is open, after a Sept. 14 grand opening.
- 18219 E. Appleway Ave. Capitol Bar & Grill is open. It has been serving since Aug. 7 in the former Boomers Classic Rock Bar & Grill space.
The last pies at 12622 E. Sprague
The Conley's story starts before the Conleys did. The restaurant used to be Pioneer Pies. Jennifer Conley worked there as a manager for several years before she and her husband bought the business in 1993. They kept the famous pie recipe and added an Irish influence that reflected their heritage. On the last day, KXLY reported, staff sold hundreds of pies as the display cases emptied.
A regular told the station the place felt emotional and had been there a long time. Conley summed up the decades simply: "We set out to make friends, and that's exactly what we did." She's retiring, so this wasn't a business failing. A longtime owner reached the end of her run and found a buyer who plans to keep the building a restaurant.
A Boomers space at Appleway and Barker gets a $400,000 redo
A few miles east, Raci Erdem has already shown what reusing an old space looks like. Capitol Bar & Grill opened Friday, Aug. 7, at 18219 E. Appleway. It's next to Lady Luck Tattoo and Green City Saloon, in the space Boomers Classic Rock Bar & Grill used to occupy. Post Falls-based Ben of All Trades LLC did a $400,000 interior renovation, with help from Darren Cook, one of Erdem's employees. The result is an 85-seat dining room with a long bar, sports on several screens, and a back patio that seats 20 more.
Erdem told the Spokesman-Review he had no plan to open another restaurant at all. He and his team were just looking at spots, and then they walked into this one.
"We like to see things as what we can do, not what it is. We saw a lot of potential here for what we can turn it into."
Capitol is his fourth government-themed restaurant. The others are White House Grill and Oval Office Bistro in Post Falls and the Pentagon in Liberty Lake. He started the group in Post Falls about 30 years ago, and his nephew Emre Basar is now a co-owner. For Valley residents, the hours are the useful part. Erdem is aiming at late-night diners, with Capitol open 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and until midnight on Friday and Saturday. He told the Spokane Journal it has been packed every day since opening.
The Shopko building has been empty since 2019
The largest reuse project on the corridor is the one still behind construction fencing. Shopko closed at 13414 E. Sprague in 2019. Developer Don Gaube of Alamo Group told the Spokesman-Review in July that a Trader Joe's would open there in the fall, and that his group hoped to open before Halloween. By then renovations had been going for more than five months. Alamo Group converted the building to Trader Joe's standards and upgraded its utilities and structure to meet code, according to the Greater Spokane Valley Chamber of Commerce.
The store's size makes more sense next to a few comparisons from the same report:
- The building is 21,500 square feet. It's owned by Danville, California-based Coval SV LLC.
- The Trader Joe's will use about 15,000 square feet of it, according to Gaube.
- Most Trader Joe's stores run between 8,000 and 12,000 square feet, according to company spokesperson Nakia Rohde.
- The average U.S. grocery store in 2025 was over 42,000 square feet, according to the Food Industry Association.
So this will be a large store by Trader Joe's standards and still about a third the size of an average supermarket. It will be the fourth Trader Joe's in the Inland Northwest, after the two in Spokane and the one in Coeur d'Alene. The chamber is openly hopeful about what comes next. It wrote that the store "may serve as a catalyst for surrounding redevelopment or infill retail growth."
The timing is still open. "Before Halloween" was the developer's hope in July, and Trader Joe's itself hasn't announced a date. As of today, its locator still lists the Spokane Valley store as coming soon.
The one ground-up build on the strip
Kindler's, at 14816 E. Sprague, is the one new building in this stretch. Owner Conrad Manfred told the Spokane Journal that construction on the 2,300-square-foot restaurant began in March. His own firm, Manfred Construction LLC, which does business as Kodiak General Contracting, was the general contractor. The restaurant seats 40, has a drive-thru, and delivers through third-party apps.
The entire menu is certified gluten- and seed-oil-free. On Sept. 3, about 80 members of Celiac Safe Spokane previewed the menu ahead of the Sept. 14 grand opening. CEO Ken Batali told the Inlander what he heard that night: "When I heard people say, 'Gosh, I've never been able to share my dinner with my husband,' or 'Worried what my kid's gonna touch,' [or] 'We haven't been able to go out in years,' I mean, it almost got to me a little bit."
The menu is built around bowls such as teriyaki chicken, chicken Cobb, and lemongrass shrimp. Kindler's is open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day and expects to hire up to 20 people. Batali said breakfast and catering are planned, and those would push opening time to 7 a.m.
What is still unsettled along Sprague
Two of the four addresses above have firm answers. Kindler's and Capitol are open, with posted hours and owners on the record. The other two depend on announcements that haven't come yet:
- The Trader Joe's opening date. The developer hoped for Halloween, but the company hasn't confirmed a date. If the store does open in late October, it would line up with the Valley's own Halloween calendar. Mira-BOO is set for Friday, Oct. 30, from 6 to 9 p.m. at Mirabeau Point Park, haunted trail included.
- The next restaurant at 12622 E. Sprague. KXLY reported only that the building has sold and that a new restaurant is expected sometime in the future.
Once both are settled, the corridor will have a new restaurant in the former Pioneer Pies building, a grocery store in a box that has been dark since 2019, and a late-night grill where Boomers used to be.
When the buildings around you get new owners and new uses, it's natural to wonder what that means for your own street. If you live near Sprague or Appleway and want to talk through how changes like these play out for homeowners in the Valley, Katie McDaris is glad to listen. Schedule a consultation and bring your questions.
