Michaela Buteau earned a degree in baking and pastry arts.
She put that training to work by opening Auntie M's Bakery and Café, a walk-up counter where every donut and pastry is free of gluten and dairy. She made about 300 donuts for the grand opening and still sold out of several flavors.
Auntie M's is at 18336 Forest Road. It is one of five Forest addresses on the Lynchburg Agenda's September 27, 2026 roundup of new eateries in Greater Lynchburg. Read quickly, that list makes Forest Road sound like it's filling with brand-new restaurants. Look up each name and a different pattern shows. The food arriving on Forest Road mostly comes from local operators who started small, often on a truck. The one national brand on the list hasn't yet appeared on its own company's location page.
What the List Actually Records
The Agenda's table has three columns: establishment, location and pre-inspection date. A pre-inspection is a health department step. It doesn't announce an opening, and a business can show up on the list for reasons that have nothing to do with being new. These are the five Forest entries and what each one turned out to be.
| Establishment | Forest address | Pre-inspection date | What it turned out to be |
|---|---|---|---|
| Playa Bowls | 16129 Forest Road | 9/11/2026 | Not yet listed on the company's official location page |
| Auntie M's Bakery | 18336 Forest Road | 7/17/2026 | New; grand opening in late August |
| Pink Lemonade | 205 Gristmill Drive | 6/26/2026 | Mobile food vendor |
| Downtown Cairo | 18013 Forest Road | 6/22/2026 | Open since December 2023 |
| El Gordo's Taqueria | 17980 Forest Road | 3/19/2026 | Food truck that moved into a storefront |
Only one of the five, Auntie M's, is a confirmed 2026 debut. Two are restaurants that grew out of food trucks. One is still a truck. The fifth hasn't shown up on its company's list of open locations.
Downtown Cairo Shows How a Truck Becomes an Address
If you've eaten at Graves Mill Shopping Center in the past three years, you may already know Downtown Cairo. Samir and Emily Elazazy opened it on December 21, 2023, in Suite A03 at 18013 Forest Road. Lynchburg Living reported that the restaurant continued the food-truck business they already ran.
The menu is Egyptian and Mediterranean: shawarma plates, gyros, falafel, kofta, build-your-own bowls, and hawawshi, the Egyptian street burger. Lynchburg Living named the shawarma plate and the gyro in pita as customer favorites.
Downtown Cairo's appearance on a 2026 "coming soon" list says more about how health paperwork works than about the restaurant. It has been serving from the same suite for close to three years. The truck-to-storefront path it took is the same one at work two doors down.
El Gordo's Took the Same Route
El Gordo's Taqueria, in Suite D at 17980 Forest Road, is a storefront version of a local food truck. It calls itself family-owned. The menu centers on quesabirrias, quesadillas, burritos and tacos, with homemade tortillas. Its pre-inspection date of March 19, 2026 is the earliest of the five Forest entries.
Unlike a truck that moves around, it now keeps regular hours:
- Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.
- Sunday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
- Closed Monday
Those hours are the main practical change from the truck days. Before, you had to know where the truck was parked. Now dinner has a fixed address six nights a week, about a block's worth of street numbers from Downtown Cairo.
Pink Lemonade Is Still on Wheels
The Pink Lemonade entry is the hardest to place. The Agenda lists it at 205 Gristmill Drive with a June 26 pre-inspection. Its StreetFoodFinder profile lists it under carnival/fair, boba and comfort food, and describes bubble lemonade, coffee, boba tea and funnel cakes. The Agenda's inspection report published September 28 lists "Pink Lemonade—Forest" as a mobile food unit that got a routine inspection on September 19.
The Gristmill Drive address is also home to New Yamada. That restaurant opened after a ribbon cutting on March 24, 2023, according to WFXR. Destination Bedford describes New Yamada as offering sushi, sake, boba and Japanese BBQ. The restaurant's own online menu lists pink lemonade as a $1.99 drink. No source connects the truck to the restaurant through ownership, staff or shared space. They share a street address and a drink name, and nothing more is confirmed.
Pink Lemonade's StreetFoodFinder profile showed no upcoming public events when it was checked. For now it's a truck to follow, not a place to plan a dinner around. It is at the same early stage Downtown Cairo and El Gordo's were before they took on a lease.
Auntie M's Skipped the Truck but Started Just as Small
Auntie M's is a walk-up shop, serving coffee and fresh donuts. Buteau built its menu around gluten- and dairy-free baking. The name comes from her favorite role, being an aunt. WSET published its story on Sunday, August 23, 2026 and said the grand opening was "on Saturday," which puts it on August 22.
WSET's dateline reads "Lynchburg," but 18336 Forest Road is the Forest address on the Agenda list. Posted hours weren't found in this research, so check the bakery's own channels before you go.
The National Brand Is the One Still Waiting
Playa Bowls is the exception to the local-operator pattern, and it is also the entry with the least confirmed. The company's menu covers bowls, smoothies, juices, cold brew and its Surf Quencher drinks. The Forest Road unit at 16129 Forest Road passed pre-inspection on September 11. As of early October, Playa Bowls' official Lynchburg location page listed only 3405 Candlers Mountain Road, and the Forest Road unit wasn't on it.
To picture the site, a 2025 seasonal tree-lot listing put 16129 Forest Road next to the former Aylors Farm & Garden Shop, now George's Seed, Feed and Grow Shop, and beside Rookies ice cream shop. Neighbors on a stretch of road can change in a year, so treat that as an approximate landmark.
Until the Forest Road unit shows up on the company's location page, the confirmed location remains Candlers Mountain Road.
An October Drive Up Forest Road, by Street Number
If you read the five entries in address order, they become a single drive. Start at the lower numbers on a Saturday morning and work up.
- Forest Farmers Market, 15583 Forest Road, behind Forest Library. Saturdays, 8 a.m. to noon, through October 31, 2026.
- Playa Bowls, 16129 Forest Road. Drive past to see whether the doors are open yet.
- El Gordo's Taqueria, 17980 Forest Road, Suite D. Opens at 11 a.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
- Downtown Cairo, 18013 Forest Road, Suite A03, in Graves Mill Shopping Center.
- Auntie M's Bakery and Café, 18336 Forest Road, for coffee and a gluten- and dairy-free donut on the way home.
New Yamada at 205 Gristmill Drive is the side trip. Pink Lemonade is the truck you catch when its schedule happens to line up with yours.
The market has four Saturdays left: October 10, 17, 24 and 31. Poplar Forest adds two evenings out before the season ends. The Fall Harvest Dinner is October 24, 6:30 to 9 p.m., and the Fall Thomas Jefferson Wine Festival is November 7, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Both are at 1776 Poplar Forest Parkway. The market's last Saturday of the year is October 31.
Amy Carter has watched Forest Road change one storefront at a time, and she enjoys talking about which kitchens moved in and what used to be on each lot. If you're thinking about what a home near this stretch of road could look like for you, Amy Carter (VA) would be glad to sit down with you. Schedule a free consultation.
