For nearly five years, a weeknight walk in Galena ended at the gate. You could drive to the Old 3C Road lot, get out, and stare at a chain across the mouth of a boardwalk that had been closed since May 2021. Locals stopped mentioning it to guests. Kids who were in strollers when it shut are in second grade now.
That gate is open again. And it quietly changes what a Tuesday evening in this village actually looks like.
The one thing that changed in March
The reconstructed Hoover Mudflats Boardwalk opened on March 18, 2026, a 1,500-foot structure redesigned and rebuilt after the previous one was closed in 2021 due to safety concerns. That is the fact. What it means for anyone who lives inside the 43021 is more interesting.
The old boardwalk was a curiosity you brought out-of-town guests to. The new one, sitting inside a dedicated nature preserve at the north end of Hoover Reservoir, is close enough to the village circle that it functions as an evening walk rather than an outing. Old Galena sits on a peninsula between Big Walnut Creek and Little Walnut Creek at the north end of Hoover Reservoir, which means the water is not a destination. It is the edge of your neighborhood.
If you moved here between 2021 and 2025, you have never had this. This is your first Galena summer with a walkable pier.
The 90-minute loop, mapped
Here is the shape of the evening most people did not know was available six months ago:
- Park once, on West Columbus Street near the circle.
- Eat, or grab coffee to walk with, at one of the addresses below.
- Drive or bike the short hop to the Old 3C Road lot.
- Walk the 1,500 feet out, watch the water, walk back.
- Circle back to the village for a nightcap or an ice cream.
The whole thing fits inside 90 minutes on a weeknight, which is the number that matters. Before March, the same evening required either a longer drive to Highbanks or a decision to skip the water entirely.
Where the village circle stands right now
The dining bench inside the circle is deeper than it looks. A few specifics, because generic references are useless if you are trying to figure out where to actually go:
- Toni's Trattoria — now open, with old and new world Italian favorites in the heart of Galena. This is the sit-down anchor for the circle in 2026.
- Son of Thurman — at 31 W. Columbus St., open Monday through Sunday 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., part of the fourth generation of the family behind Thurman's famous burger, family-owned since 1942, bringing the Thurman experience to downtown Delaware and Galena. The 9 p.m. close is the operative detail if you are walking the boardwalk first.
- Galena Diner — at 13 W. Columbus St., open weekdays from 7:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m., Fridays until 8, and by the village's own account serving comfort food and hometown hospitality for over 20 years, a go-to for classic American fare. This is your breakfast-before, not your dinner-after.
- The Coffee Vault — a local gem in a beautifully restored historic building, more community hub than coffee shop. This is the "carry it with you" option for a walk.
- Mudflats Bar & Grill — the one restaurant whose name is literally the boardwalk. It sits closest to the trailhead and is the natural stop on the way back.
- Sambuca's Greenhouse & Country Market — locally grown since 1997, bringing fresh plants, produce, jams, gifts, and homemade goods. Not dinner. But if you are walking a stretch of the loop in daylight, this is where you pick up tomorrow morning's tomatoes.
Notice what this list is not. It is not a top-ten roundup. Ten sit-down restaurants inside the village would be a fantasy. What you actually have is a compact bench of five or six anchors that each do one thing well, and a stop for garden goods on the way home.
The August anchor
The other thing worth putting on the calendar before it fills up: Harlem Township Days in Galena on August 15. It falls on the same weekend as a dozen other Ohio festivals, which is useful information in reverse. It means the crowd is local. People come from Sunbury, Westerville, and Lewis Center. They do not drive up from Powell or Dublin for it. That is the whole point.
If you have lived here five years, you already know Harlem Township Days. If you moved in during 2023 or 2024, this may be the first one where you actually know your neighbors well enough to make plans around it.
What the boardwalk actually shows you in July and August
The boardwalk is not a scenic overlook. It is a working piece of habitat.
The new boardwalk offers a way to elevate your experiences with wildlife viewing, casting a line, or simply spending time in nature. It offers an immersive yet protective way to be in and with nature while protecting the surrounding habitat and wildlife within the Hoover Reservoir Nature Preserve.
Late summer specifics that reward paying attention:
- Water level changes the experience meaningfully. In late spring and summer, when the Hoover Dam upstream keeps water levels high, the water around the boardwalk covers almost three-quarters of the supports; in late fall and winter, the water is generally substantially lower, leaving most of the supports and concrete footers exposed. July and August is the "high" version. The pier reads more like an open-water walk than a mud walk right now.
- Bald eagles, peregrine falcons, and osprey are lake residents; you can also see turkey vultures, hawks, and great blue herons. Bring binoculars if you have them. If you do not, bring your phone and stop expecting a good photo, because nesting poles are far away from the walk, so telephoto or binoculars is what actually works.
- The boardwalk closes in the evening, and the small parking lot at the start fills fast enough that people park along the quiet road when it does. On a July weeknight, arriving by 7 p.m. is comfortable. On a Saturday, 6 p.m. is the safer plan.
Two more practical notes worth carrying: the walk is slippery when wet, and if you are bringing kids who need a running-around option before or after, Ruffner Park and Miller Park both have playgrounds and open space.
The thing about the Arrowhead site
While we are here, one piece of civic news that will show up in conversation this fall: the September 10 Council Meeting and Public Hearing is set to cover Arrowhead Golf Course Rezoning. If you live within a mile of the course, that is the meeting to actually attend. Rezoning conversations are the kind of thing that gets abstract on paper and specific the day the first survey stake goes in. There is no writeup that will substitute for showing up.
This is not real estate advice. It is a note that the room where the decision gets made is scheduled, and residents who live near the site tend to want to be in it.
What has actually changed, honestly
If you have lived in Galena since before 2021, you know the village has been quietly getting denser. Toni's opened. Son of Thurman planted a flag on Columbus Street. The Coffee Vault matured into a room where you can sit at 3 p.m. on a Wednesday and see three people you recognize.
The boardwalk being open again is the piece that closes the loop. Literally. It gives you a place to walk after dinner that is not a parking lot or a sidewalk along State Route 3. It puts the water back into your weeknight instead of your weekend.
That is a small change on paper. It is a bigger change in the muscle memory of living here. The village has more to do on a Tuesday in July 2026 than it did in July 2021, and the pier is the reason that sentence is defensible.
For the rest of the summer
A short worked example for the next four weeks:
- This week — walk the boardwalk once at golden hour. Bring binoculars. Note the water level. You will want the reference point in November.
- Next week — pick a weeknight, park on the circle, eat somewhere you have not been in six months, then drive the mile out. This is the loop you now have.
- August 15 — Harlem Township Days. Plan around it, not through it.
- September 10 — if you live near Arrowhead, put the council meeting on the calendar.
None of this is a reason to move. It is a reason to remember why you live here.
If you own in Galena and are starting to think about what the boardwalk reopening, the circle's new dining bench, and the Arrowhead conversation mean for your specific block, that is a real conversation and one we have often. Work with us at the MORE Ohio Team when you are ready to talk about it. Local questions get better answers from someone who is actually walking the pier on a Tuesday.
