Walk into Harmony Crossing in Eatonton on a Friday night and you will wait for a table at Pho & More, a family-owned Vietnamese restaurant that opened its doors earlier this year and has been packed since. According to Lake Oconee News, the owners, Marino and Summer Graf, cut the ribbon on July 23 with Summer's father, John Nguyen, standing beside them and a crowd from the Eatonton-Putnam Chamber of Commerce gathered on the sidewalk. By that point the restaurant had already been open for close to four months, long enough to build the kind of following that shows up on a Tuesday without being asked.
Three new businesses opened around Lake Oconee in 2026, adding dining and retail choices.
Meet the new businesses
Between early spring and this summer, three new businesses set up shop on the Lake Oconee side, and every one of them is open to anyone who walks in off the street.
| Business | What it is | Where | Opened |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Crunchy Shop | Wellness and lifestyle retail, owned by Claudia Malcolm | Lake Oconee area | Grand opening April 18, 2026 |
| Pho & More | Family-owned Vietnamese restaurant, owned by Marino and Summer Graf | 113 Harmony Crossing, Eatonton | Opened roughly March or April 2026, per a ribbon-cutting reported in July |
| Italian Chophouse at Lake Oconee | Lakefront Italian cuisine with a steakhouse edge | Eatonton | Recently opened, still in its first weeks as of early August |
The Crunchy Shop sells herbal remedies and natural goods, and it lets customers build their own candles, perfumes, and laundry care products in the store rather than just buying something off a shelf. Pho & More brought a cuisine that Lake Country did not have a dedicated spot for. The Italian Chophouse added a full steakhouse and pasta menu with lake views.
These additions sit alongside a well-established dining scene around the lake.
Dining and retail around Lake Oconee
Reynolds Lake Oconee lists eleven distinctive on-site restaurants, several of them Platinum Member-only, including a lakefront spot called Richland Pointe with a 52-foot wraparound bar. The restaurant scene there has been growing for years.
This year's three new openings are open to the public: a wellness shop where customers can make their own candle, a Vietnamese kitchen in a strip center, and a lakefront Italian restaurant with reservations on OpenTable.
Beyond the retail addition, the restaurants are where opening-week adjustments are most apparent.
Early experiences at the new restaurants
New does not mean smooth, and both restaurants have been transparent about that in their own ways.
At the Italian Chophouse, recent diners have described the bar filling up early, one visitor noting it was full by 5:50 in the evening, and opening weekends running loud and busy enough that service occasionally lagged. The restaurant keeps dinner hours Monday, Thursday, and Sunday from 4 to 9pm, and Friday and Saturday from 4 to 10pm. The dress code is listed as business casual, though early reviewers say the room has seen everything from dressed-up date nights to shorts and jeans.
Pho & More's opening stretch drew a different kind of patience from the community. As the restaurant worked through training new kitchen and waitstaff while serving a packed house, local coverage asked neighbors to extend grace to a brand new small business still figuring things out in real time, the same way any of us would in a new job. That is a small thing, but it says something about how this stretch of the lake treats its own. Nobody piled on a new restaurant for growing pains. People kept showing up and cut it some slack.
If you are planning a visit to either place this month, go in expecting a full house and a staff still finding its rhythm. Early evening on a weeknight will get you a calmer table and faster service than a Friday at 7.
Where the new spots fit into the week you already keep
None of this replaces the rhythm regulars already have. Lake Oconee Bistro, run by owner Gary Sofen, has offered two different moods under one roof for years, a relaxed lake vibe or a more refined night out, and that has not changed. The farmers market rotation is still doing what it has always done too, with Cafe du Papa showing up at the Lake Oconee Farmers Market, the Farmview Farmers Market, and the Downtown Eatonton Farmers Market on a schedule that runs through the summer and into fall.
Three new stops add to the week's options. If your Saturday already includes a farmers market run, Pho & More is close enough to fold into that same trip. If Friday nights on the water usually end with the same two or three dinner spots, the Italian Chophouse gives you another lakefront option.
Each opening has its own appeal, whether you eat at all three this month or just file them away for the next time someone asks what is new around here.
If you are curious what else has changed in this part of Lake Country, or you are weighing whether this stretch of the lake fits the life you are building next, Traci Nelson knows this water and these towns from the inside. Reach out and find your lake lifestyle.
