For more than three years, drivers on Highway 95 near the Bullhead City Sam's Club have passed a "coming soon" sign for a Church's Texas Chicken that has never broken ground. As of a January 2026 update to that reporting, city officials still said the chain had until the end of the year to start construction or reapply for permits from scratch, a deadline that puts a real clock on a sign that's already outlasted more than a few New Year's resolutions. Meanwhile, in that same Airport Center commercial corridor, an Olive Garden moved from a filed site plan to a county vote on its sublease in a matter of months, a taco counter turned a social media post into a funded renovation, and a nine-hole golf course went from a council vote absorbing its debt to a ribbon-cutting in under six months.
If you live here, the useful question isn't "what's new in Bullhead City." It's this: what separates the projects that actually move from the one that's been advertising itself since before some current residents moved to town? The answer turns out to be simple and worth knowing, because it tells you where to actually watch next.
The sign that's been up longer than some leases
The Church's Texas Chicken sign near the Airport Center commercial development, close to Sam's Club, has marked that spot for more than three years without a shovel in the ground, according to Mohave Daily News reporting first published in October 2025 and updated again in January 2026. As of that January update, city officials still told the paper that Church's had until the end of the year to either begin construction or start the permitting process over. There's no announced construction timeline, which means the sign has effectively become a piece of roadside furniture rather than a promise with a date attached.
That's not unusual for retail chains waiting out site economics or corporate approval cycles. What makes it worth noting here is the contrast sitting right next door.
The paperwork that actually moved
An Olive Garden is heading for the same general stretch of Highway 95, on a two-acre parcel east of the Bullhead City Home Depot, on land leased from the Mohave County Airport Authority. According to Mackenzie Covert, the city's public information officer, quoted in Mohave Daily News, the site plan depicts a building of approximately 6,500 square feet. Mohave County supervisors were scheduled to vote on the sublease agreement securing that location on January 20, 2026, a detail also reported by Havasu News. No construction start date has been announced yet, but the difference is that Olive Garden's project already reached a county supervisors' agenda. Church's has a sign. Olive Garden has a filed site plan and a scheduled county vote.
That distinction matters if you're trying to figure out which "coming soon" claims in this town are worth believing. A filed site plan and a county sublease vote are steps that cost money and require a company to show up on a public agenda. A sign is a sign.
The local business that didn't wait on anyone
While the chains work through county paperwork, one of Bullhead City's own restaurants just moved faster than either of them. I Heart Tacos, a Mexican restaurant that's operated out of Fort Mohave, announced in May 2026 that it's expanding into a new location at 3699 Highway 95, inside the Target Shopping Center, according to Mohave Journal. The new spot will add something the original location never had room for: real seating and a full-service, sit-down cantina, addressing what had been a persistent bottleneck for a restaurant that had outgrown its walk-up counter. The plan also includes new menu items, though the business says its core model of fair prices and high volume isn't changing.
No exact opening date has been announced, but the expansion is a funded, physical build-out rather than a rumor. If you've been waiting for a table at I Heart Tacos on a Friday night, this is the reason to keep an eye on that shopping center over the next several months.
The fastest mover in town wasn't a restaurant at all
The clearest example of how quickly things can actually happen here isn't food. It's golf.
In September 2025, the Bullhead City Council authorized an agreement to take full ownership of the longstanding nine-hole Chaparral Golf Course, a deal that came with more than $400,000 in outstanding debt, according to Mohave Daily News. By November 2025, the transition to full municipal ownership was complete. By March 13, 2026, the city held a grand re-opening with a 9 a.m. ribbon cutting, free walk-only family golf from 3 to 5 p.m., a $10.50 fish fry running from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., and live piano from local performer Tim Lamb from 5 to 8 p.m., according to the event listing on Bullhead City's tourism site.
Here's the same set of projects lined up side by side:
| Project | First Public Step | Where It Stands (as of August 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Chaparral Golf Course | Council authorizes takeover, absorbing $400K+ in debt (Sept. 2025) | Fully reopened, public ribbon cutting held March 13, 2026 |
| Olive Garden | Site plan filed with the city | County supervisors' sublease vote scheduled Jan. 20, 2026 |
| I Heart Tacos | Expansion announced on social media (May 2026) | Building out sit-down cantina in Target Shopping Center |
| Church's Texas Chicken | "Coming soon" sign posted | No groundbreaking as of Aug. 2026; must break ground or re-permit by year's end |
A city government took over a debt-laden golf course and had it open to the public with a party and live music in under six months. That's a useful benchmark for how fast things can move here when the money and the paperwork are actually in place, and it makes the Church's sign look less like a delay and more like an outlier.
Chaparral is now open daily, and the course kept its longtime character intact even under new ownership. Green fees run $25 for nine holes and $30 for eighteen, with cart rentals at $5 and $10, according to the course's official site. The restaurant has settled into a weekly rhythm locals have already started building routines around: Rib Night on Tuesdays, Home Cooking Night on Thursdays, and Fish Fry Fridays, all served from 5 to 7 p.m.
The riverboat that didn't need to change anything
Not every piece of this year's momentum required construction. The Bullhead Belle, the dry-docked riverboat restaurant inside Community Park, was named an official Passport250 stop as Arizona built out its America's 250th anniversary programming, and it joined the statewide Cheers250 "2:50 Hour" celebration on June 6, 2026, with a patriotic summer menu and a themed Mother Road AZ250 beer, according to the Bullhead Belle's own announcement. It's a reminder that some of what changes in a town like this isn't a new building. It's an old landmark finding a new reason to matter.
What this actually tells you
None of this is about predicting real estate values or timing a purchase. It's about learning to read a town the way people who've lived here for years already do: a sign means nothing until it's followed by a filed plan, a signed lease, or a council vote you can look up yourself. Bullhead City has all three of those happening at once right now, plus one long-standing holdout that finally has a deadline attached to it.
If you're the kind of resident who tracks these things anyway, because you like knowing what's actually opening before your neighbors ask, keep watching that Highway 95 corridor through the rest of 2026. Two of the four projects in that table still don't have a shovel in the ground, and by New Year's, at least one of them will have to.
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