Kris Benlioglu had two months. Hi-Ho Tavern served its last burger in Dilworth on April 19, 2026, after 79 years in the same spot on Center Avenue, and the new owner had a June 1 handoff date to hit. His wife took the decor and marketing. His 17-year-old daughter stayed up late building sidewalk signage. Neighbors showed up to help deep clean. By June 17, Grill 10 was serving burgers again out of the same booths, under the same arcade lights, with a menu built around his own kids: the Everest Meals for his one-year-old, Pierce's Shakes and Malts for the son who loves a shake despite being a picky eater, Kaelen's Way for the daughter who designed the sign.
That is a lot of local color for one storefront. But it is also the wrong story to tell in isolation, because three blocks over on 15th Street NE, nothing like it has ever happened. In Dilworth's Rail District, no business has closed since the complex opened. Not one. Businesses there have only ever been added.
Two very different track records, inside a town of under 5,000 people, a few blocks apart. If you live here and you notice a "for lease" sign go up, which corner it's on tells you almost everything about what happens next.
The Corner That Can't Keep a Business
Walk to the intersection of Main Street North and Highway 10, the old drive-thru building at 4 Center Ave W, and you're looking at a location that has changed hands five times since 2005:
- Altony's Italian Cafe, 2005 to 2012, before it relocated to Moorhead
- Verdi's Italian Market, 2014 to 2016
- Kool Kone, soft-serve and sandwiches, starting July 2017
- Dee's Drive-In, running until 2022 (its Barnesville location still operates seasonally)
- Buzz Coffee, which soft-opened at that address in July 2026
Buzz Coffee is the newest bet on a corner that has never held a tenant for more than a handful of years. It's a Nordic-Asian fusion drive-thru, Vietnamese espresso and Japanese matcha built around flavors like toasted marshmallow, ube, and cookie butter, topped with condensed milk or cold foam. It began with a sneak-peek menu on July 4 and moved into a soft opening July 10. The owner hasn't set a grand-opening date yet, which, given the address's history, might be less caution than pattern recognition.
Grill 10 sits on the same commercial spine, at 10 Center Ave E, and it inherited a completely different kind of history: one business, one family, 79 years, before the handoff to Benlioglu happened in a single quarter. That's not churn. That's a long run followed by a fast, deliberate succession, which is a different thing entirely from a building that can't hold a tenant.
The District That Only Adds
Now go three blocks to the Rail District, at 214 15th St NE, and the pattern flips completely.
The complex was built starting in 2019 by three Dilworth natives, Rick Halvorson, Mike Opatril, and Steve Opatril, with a specific design brief: buildings that looked like they could have gone up in the early 1900s, built new, meant to feel old. The Butcher Block and The Mix Picks & Decor opened first, followed by Roasted Rail Coffee House, and the city marked the complex's official grand opening on September 2, 2021. Silver Spike Bar & Grill anchored the project even earlier, brought in by the developers back in 2016 to serve as what owner Myron Knodel called "the root or anchor" of the district. Knodel, a Dilworth native who also owns The Hill Bar and Grill in Glyndon, has run the same barbecue rib recipe for 15 years and says he's "dialed it in overtime."
None of those businesses have closed. The complex has only grown. West Main Pizza and The Collective Salon & Spa filled out the adjacent Mercantile building, and in early August 2026, Soul Boutique became the newest addition, a women's clothing store opened by Beth Ellis after nearly 20 years working retail at Vanity in Fergus Falls and Francesca's stores around Duluth and the Twin Cities. Ellis described wanting to build "a haven for women seeking stylish and versatile pieces," and she's now the fourth storefront in a building that keeps adding without subtracting.
Same town, same year, same distance from Highway 10. One address burns through tenants. One hasn't lost a single one since 2019.
Same Booths, New Name
The Grill 10 story is worth sitting with a little longer, because it's the exception that proves the rule about how succession works here versus how churn works.
Benlioglu wasn't an outside investor spotting an opportunity. He'd been a fixture in Dilworth since 2013, known around town for hosting Fourth of July block parties and for taking over as the neighborhood's Santa Claus, a tradition he continues in honor of a friend who started it with him and has since passed away. He's a vice president in the Dilworth Lions Club, which held its meetings at the old Hi-Ho location for decades, a connection reflected directly in Grill 10's new logo. When he talks about what made the handoff feel right, he points to something former owner Rick Cariveau gave him beyond the keys.
"That's something Rick gave me," Benlioglu said, describing the goal of building something he can eventually pass down the same way.
The Cariveau family didn't disappear from the burger business either. Their Fargo Hi-Ho location stayed open, and they launched a new outpost, Hi-Ho on the Lake, at Middle Cormorant Lake in Lake Park at Swanies Resort, on May 1, 2026, serving the same classic burgers alongside new lake-inspired items. The brand didn't die. It split, with one half staying local under new ownership and one half moving to the lake.
That's succession, not churn. The distinction matters if you're trying to read what a "closed" sign actually means in Dilworth. On Center Avenue near Highway 10, closed can mean a location that simply doesn't hold. On the other end of Center Avenue, closed meant a 79-year run ending on its own terms, with the next owner already embedded in the community before he ever signed a lease.
What's Actually New to Try This Fall
If you're deciding where to spend a weekend in Dilworth right now, here's what's actually open and running as of early September 2026.
Grill 10 is serving 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., seven days a week, with hours subject to adjustment based on volume. The restaurant is still waiting on its liquor license, so it's pouring 1919 root beer and Coca-Cola products for now, and pointing customers next door to Mills Lounge if you want something else with dinner. The arcade room, built around Hi-Ho's original gumball machine plus foosball and claw machines, is still there.
Buzz Coffee is running its soft opening out of the Main Street North and Highway 10 drive-thru, with flavors rotating and no fixed grand-opening date announced yet.
If you're not a coffee or burger person, the fall calendar in Dilworth runs through Gourmet Game Processing, a small shop at 121 Center Ave W that becomes the busiest building in town the moment hunting season opens. Started by Neil Braasch in 1999 in a shop behind his own house, now run by his son Dave Coon, the operation processes roughly 100,000 pounds of deer meat a year and pulls in hunters from as far as Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. About 70 percent of its customers are repeat business, which is its own kind of proof that this is a town where people come back to the same counter year after year, whether it's for venison or a burger named after somebody's kid.
That's the throughline across all of it. The businesses opening in Dilworth this year aren't outside operators testing a market. They're neighbors, Lions Club members, native sons, people who grew up two blocks from where they now hang a sign. Knowing that doesn't just make for a better Saturday. It's the kind of local read that tells you something a listing sheet never will: which storefronts in this town are built to last, and which corner is still looking for the tenant that finally sticks.
If you're watching Dilworth for reasons beyond where to grab dinner, whether that's a move into town or keeping an eye on a neighborhood you already call home, Arlin Fisher has been tracking this market long enough to know which changes are surface-level and which ones actually shift how a street functions. Let's connect.
