Greenbrier's Fall Arrivals Are Local Bakers and Lobster Rolls. The Costco Is Still Paperwork.

This fall, the changes in Greenbrier you can visit are small ones. A sourdough bakery moved from Virginia Beach to Volvo Parkway because Greenbrier is where most of its staff live. A lobster roll shop set up in Greenbrier MarketCenter. The big project, a Costco on the old Sears site at Greenbrier Mall, has cleared its public votes but still has steps ahead of it. Those steps are slower, and none of them has a public date yet.

This post covers what's open now, what's on the mall calendar through December, and where the Costco plan stood as of mid-October 2026.

The bakery that moved because its bakers live here

Top Knot Artisan Bakery began in March 2025 at 544 Central Drive, off London Bridge Road in Virginia Beach. It was a wholesale bakery that also sold at farmers markets. In September 2026 it moved to 1036 Volvo Parkway in Greenbrier, according to The Virginian-Pilot.

The new shop is almost 3,500 square feet and sits next to Clean Eatz. Owner Brad Webber told the Pilot there were two reasons for the move. The bakery needed more room, and most of its employees live in Chesapeake, including Webber and his chief operating officer, Kelli Kojnok. Kojnok is a retired Montessori teacher. She started out making the pastries while Webber baked the bread, and she bought part of the business this year.

"This is our community, and we want to serve the people closest to us and share what we have to offer," Webber told The Virginian-Pilot.

The Pilot reports the menu like this:

• Bread: twelve sourdough options every day
• Bestsellers so far: focaccia and chocolate chip cookies
• Pastries: a changing lineup of scones, cookies and desserts, plus cheesecakes
• Drinks: Pin Up coffee, espresso, drip coffee, matcha and chai

The old Virginia Beach space isn't going dark. Pinup Coffee Co. plans to take it over and carry Top Knot's baked goods there. Webber told the Pilot he wants the Chesapeake shop to be "a neighborhood bakery."

A coastal menu on Greenbrier Parkway

The second new food stop is in Greenbrier MarketCenter. WAVY reported in August that Mason's Famous Lobster Rolls would open at 1220 Greenbrier Parkway, Suite 110, on Aug. 19, with hours of 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily. Those are the hours announced before opening. We couldn't find any coverage from after the opening, so check them before you go. The Mason's locations page now lists the Chesapeake shop at that address.

The owners are longtime business partners Shane Turner and Gerry Rogers. Turner told the Daily Press they were eager for the community to "fall in love with the coastal flavors and atmosphere."

Both arrivals are small, independent or franchise-scale businesses that picked spots along Greenbrier's commercial corridors. Neither one waited for the mall to be redeveloped.

The mall calendar through December

Greenbrier Mall's own event listings fill the weekends from late October to the week before Christmas. All dates below come from the Greenbrier Mall directory:

That's six event weekends in about two months. The Sears building is still standing at the north end of the property while all of this goes on.

What the June Costco vote actually decided

The Virginian-Pilot reported that city materials treat the Costco warehouse as allowed by right under the site's existing zoning. The site is zoned Planned Unit Development and covers 1401 Greenbrier Parkway and 1712 Ring Road. What needed public approval was a conditional use permit for two pieces that come with the store: a fuel station and a motor vehicle service center.

That permit passed easily. The Planning Commission recommended approval 9–0 on May 13, 2026. City Council's June 16 minutes record a 9–0 vote with no one opposed. Approval came with two conditions. The site has to be built in substantial conformance with the general development plan dated Nov. 3, 2025. The building and fuel canopy have to match the March 2026 elevation package and the canopy renderings dated Jan. 15, 2026.

Here's where each step stood as of Oct. 12, 2026, based on the public record:

The city's staff package explains why there are still steps left. The permit doesn't replace a final site plan, which the city reviews for grading, drainage, utilities, right-of-way and construction requirements. The plan also involves real site work, including tearing down the Sears building, regrading the lot and moving a retaining wall.

Costco's own new locations page, last updated Sept. 5, 2026, lists Newport News for November 2026. Chesapeake isn't on the list. A 13News Now report said city leaders hoped to finish the project by 2027 and that the construction start date was still being worked out. That report has no visible publish date, so treat 2027 as a hope city leaders mentioned. It isn't a schedule.

What the plan says about traffic on Volvo Parkway

If you drive Volvo Parkway or Eden Way, this part matters more than the opening date. The staff package says the permit didn't propose any new access points or changes to existing ones. Staff also decided no extra traffic study was needed, because a Costco wasn't expected to bring more traffic than the mall did at its peak.

Council members still raised it at the June 16 meeting. Council Member King supported the project but called the heavy traffic on Volvo Parkway and Eden Way a concern. Council Member Ward asked about syncing the traffic signals on Greenbrier Parkway and Battlefield Boulevard. City Manager Price said staff evaluate signal timing in those areas on an ongoing basis. Vice Mayor Ritter talked about the Greenbrier and South Norfolk Tax Increment Financing districts, where the money goes only to capital projects inside each district's boundaries. None of the sources we reviewed tie the Costco to a specific road project.

Even city planners see the project as a bit of a compromise. Staff wrote that a single big warehouse doesn't fully fit the area plan's goal of urban, mixed-use development. They also concluded it could help kick off redevelopment on the rest of the mall property. Sam Baraki, who represented the applicant, made a similar point to the Pilot, saying the project could bring investment and encourage more redevelopment around the mall. In its June 16 coverage of the council vote, WAVY quoted Helen Sharpe, co-owner of Family Pet, LLC. She said she hoped an anchor like Costco would draw shoppers from Chesapeake, Suffolk and North Carolina, and that those shoppers would then explore the rest of the mall.

That leaves Greenbrier in an in-between stretch this fall. You can already get a loaf of focaccia on Volvo Parkway and a lobster roll on Greenbrier Parkway. For the Costco, the next public sign of progress will be a final site plan approval or demolition at the Sears building.

At 4 Oceans Real Estate Group, we follow projects like the Greenbrier Costco from the council agenda to the first day of construction, because these updates come up in conversations with Chesapeake homeowners. If you'd like to talk about how the changes around Greenbrier relate to your own home, start with an instant home valuation and we'll go over it with you.