The chicken parm at POPS on East Main Street comes out with a color palette all its own: mid-century orange banquettes, warm wood tones, jazz drifting from the speakers. Order the same family's cheeseburger three-quarters of a mile away at Bully Run, inside The Mill on Etowah, and you get a totally different room. Patio seating. A mural of a bully-breed dog mid-zoomie on the side of the building. Football on a screen the size of a garage door.
Different buildings, different menus, different crowds on a Friday night. Same last name on both leases.
One Family, Two Counters, Three-Quarters of a Mile Apart
Andy and Amber Palermo opened POPS, short for Palermo's Original Pasta & Sandwiches, inside the historic Jones Building a few steps from Cannon Park. Andy grew up around Italian restaurants in Connecticut and later spent years as vice president of operations for Rocket Farm Restaurants in Atlanta, overseeing guest service and new openings before turning that experience toward his own kitchen. POPS built its name on fresh pasta, a weekday breakfast menu, and a small in-house Italian market selling imported olive oil and pasta-making tools.
Then, on March 16, 2026, the Palermos opened a second restaurant across town: Bully Run, a smash-burger concept in the former Community Burger space at The Mill on Etowah, according to the Cherokee County Chamber of Commerce and confirmed by the Tribune Ledger News. The menu leans casual on purpose, built around fresh-ground certified Angus beef, grilled cheese dogs, gourmet chicken strips, and milkshakes, served in a dog-friendly space with outdoor seating. One early customer review put it simply: the burgers arrived on "a sweet Hawaiian roll bun" that made the whole thing work.
Here is the part that matters if you have been treating downtown Canton as two separate scenes: it is not two restaurant groups competing for your Friday night. It is one family who decided the town had room for both a sit-down pasta dinner and a casual burger run, and who happened to place them on opposite ends of downtown rather than three doors apart.
| POPS | Bully Run | |
|---|---|---|
| Location | Jones Building, near Cannon Park | The Mill on Etowah, 225 Reformation Pkwy |
| Known for | Fresh pasta, weekday breakfast, in-house Italian market | Smash burgers, chicken tenders, milkshakes |
| Seating | Indoor dining room | Patio, dog-friendly |
| Opened | Existing downtown anchor | March 16, 2026 |
Why the Map Doesn't Match the Kitchen
Part of what makes this worth noticing is how differently the two locations present themselves. East Main Street still reads as the Canton most longtime residents grew up with: the Historic Canton Theatre has anchored that block for more than 113 years, going back to when it screened silent films off slides as early as 1911. Cannon Park sits a few doors down, doing double duty as farmers market grounds and festival lawn.
The Mill on Etowah tells a different story, and a much larger one physically. It is a 250,000-square-foot property that operated as a cotton mill from 1901 until the 1980s, producing so much denim in its heyday that the city still calls it the birthplace of "Canton Denim." Developers bought the site in 2018 and rebuilt it into the mixed-use dining, retail, and event space it is today, riverside, with its own green space and stage.
Two very different physical histories. Two different aesthetics. And yet the family running one of downtown's oldest recent success stories decided the second location belonged inside that old mill rather than a third storefront on Main. That is not a coincidence so much as a read on where downtown Canton's energy actually sits right now: not confined to one strip, but spread across a walkable stretch that includes both the century-old mill site and the historic Main Street core, connected by regular events that pull people back and forth between them all season.
What's Actually on the Calendar This Fall
If you have not made the walk between Cannon Park and the river in a few weeks, here is what is worth building a weekend around before the year turns:
- Riverfest, September 26 and 27 at Etowah River Park. The arts and crafts festival draws more than 25,000 visitors most years and benefits the Service League of Cherokee County, with vendor booths running both days.
- First Friday, October 2, downtown's monthly block party closes Main Street to traffic for live music, food trucks, and extended shopping hours. October's lineup features a tribute act, On the Border, playing an Eagles set, and it closes out the season, since First Fridays run May through October before the format pauses for winter.
- Denim Fest, October 17 at The Mill on Etowah, now in its fifth year. Expect SEC football on the big screen, a carnival midway with a ten-dollar wristband, pop-up bars, and a partnership with History Cherokee called "Come to Work with Salty," a hands-on walk through the site's mill-worker history. The event runs from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. and is free to attend outside the carnival wristband.
None of these events require picking a side. Riverfest sits at the river park near the Mill footprint. First Friday belongs to Main Street. Denim Fest claims the Mill grounds outright. Taken together, they are less like three separate calendars and more like one long invitation to treat downtown as a single loop rather than two destinations you choose between.
The Two-Stop Evening
If you want a version of downtown Canton that actually uses both ends of it, the Palermo family has already built the itinerary for you without meaning to. Start at POPS for pasta and a glass of wine in the Jones Building's warm-toned dining room. Walk it off through Cannon Park. Then head over to The Mill on Etowah, order a shake at Bully Run, and catch whatever is happening on the green that night, whether that is a First Friday spillover crowd or Denim Fest's carnival lights.
It is a short drive, and an even shorter one if you count it in minutes rather than miles. What it really requires is letting go of the idea that Main Street and the Mill are competing for the same Friday night crowd. They are not. They are the same crowd, same family running the kitchen at both ends, just on different nights depending on what you are in the mood for.
That is the part about downtown Canton that a quick scroll through a map or a restaurant list will not tell you. The two ends of downtown feel different because they were built in different centuries. They function like one scene because the people who know the town best keep choosing to build across both of them rather than picking a side.
Bondy Prestigious Properties works with families across Cherokee County who already know this rhythm, whether they are settled in for the long haul or just starting to notice how much downtown Canton has grown into two ends of the same good night out. If Canton's next chapter, whatever that looks like for your family, ever includes a move, we would be glad to talk through what that looks like from someone who already knows which end of downtown has the better parking.
