Oktoberfest at Alpen Haus wrapped on Sunday, October 4. The brass band and German band sets that filled September on Washington Street are done for the year. The restaurant's next big date is October 19, when an eight-week indoor golf league starts in the simulator bays behind the dining room.
That calendar says a lot about the businesses that opened or moved in Valparaiso this summer. They arrived during festival season, but each one was set up for the months after it. One is a simulator lodge whose league ends in December. One is a florist with a design studio four times its old size and a list of pumpkin and wreath workshops. One is a popcorn shop that relaunched just before gift season. The last is an airport shuttle that opens its hangar to the public in the run-up to holiday travel. Downtown Valparaiso has spent years building a strong outdoor calendar. These four give it a reason to stay busy once the plaza goes quiet.
Alpen Haus Is Only Half a Summer Business
Alpen Haus & The Golf Lodge sits on Washington Street in the space that used to be two storefronts, the former Aftermath and Be Good Juicerie. Co-founder Tatjana Hess grew up in Stuttgart, Germany. Her fiancé and co-founder, Alec Emmons, grew up in Chesterton. His grandparents started Water Way Pool in Portage in the 1980s. The couple already ran The Golf Lodge in Lake Tahoe, a cocktail bar with indoor golf simulators that opened about two and a half years before the Valparaiso project. Hess's lifelong plan for a German restaurant joined that model under one roof.
The grand opening came in July, and the ribbon cutting followed on August 4. The kitchen sticks with the classics: pretzels with beer cheese and sweet mustard, Obazda with rustic bread, schnitzel at $22, pork knuckle at $36, rouladen, currywurst, goulash and Black Forest cake. The Alpen Haus website lists hours of 4 to 10 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday. It's closed Mondays.
The Golf Lodge half is where the cold-weather case gets made. It has four Trackman simulator bays with more than 400 courses. Every bay also runs a multi-sport mode for baseball, hockey and football. Here is what The Golf Lodge posts as of early October 2026:
| What | Detail |
|---|---|
| Standard bay | $40 to $65 per hour, depending on season and demand |
| Private VIP room | $90 per hour |
| TrackMan league | Eight weeks, October 19 to December 9 |
| League nights | Tuesday or Wednesday |
| Booking | Through the Trackman booking page |
The rate range follows demand, and the league runs right through the weeks when outdoor courses wind down. Emmons said in July that he wanted guests "to play on the simulators for hours at a time, enjoy football games, or the Masters tournament on the big screen." Football season and the indoor golf months are the same months.
Schultz Floral Rebuilt Around Workshops
A few blocks south, the same Valparaiso builder, Chester Inc., finished a second project this summer. Chester also worked with the Alpen Haus founders. Schultz Floral held its ribbon cutting at its new home on the south side of downtown on Wednesday, August 26. The shop's website now lists 551 Franklin Street. Some older directory listings still show the Calumet Avenue address.
The move ended a long run. Owner Jessica Ray put it this way at the ceremony, as GreatNews.Life reported:
"It's been over five decades that Schultz Floral has been up on Calumet. It's no small feat moving a legacy business in a town and community as close-knit as Valpo."
The new building changes what the shop can do. The design studio is four times the size of the old one, and the cooler space is three times bigger. Ray tied that capacity to Valentine's Day, Mother's Day and prom. She also described a service the Calumet shop didn't offer: public and private workshops on site. Within weeks of the move, three private workshops were already booked for the next month. The themes she listed were fairy gardens for kids and flowers, pumpkins and wreaths for adults.
Pumpkins and wreaths cover October through December. A florist used to be a stop on the way to an occasion. On Franklin Street it can now be where the evening happens. Schultz hasn't posted a public workshop calendar yet, so the shop itself is the place to ask about dates.
Front Row Popcorn Is on Its Third Name
Out on Evans Avenue, a long-running Valparaiso shop started its newest chapter in September. Opportunity Enterprises, a disability service organization, relaunched its popcorn and sweets shop as Front Row Popcorn. The popcorn is also going onto grocery shelves across Indiana and Chicagoland. OE president and CEO Neil Samahon said the product itself would stay largely the same. The ribbon cutting at the shop was held September 28, according to Indiana 105.
The name is new, but the shop isn't. It opened in 2007 as Simply Amazing Market and became Do Goodies in 2023. Front Row Popcorn is its third name. Its lineup includes the classic cheddar-and-caramel mix, caramel puffcorn, s'mores, cinnamon, Tuxedo Twist, cayenne caramel and gift sets. The shop at 2801 Evans Ave keeps weekday hours, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, and closes on weekends.
The product has a hometown backstory. Valparaiso's popcorn festival dates to 1979, after the Chamber first declared "Redenbacher Recognition Day" in honor of Orville Redenbacher, as WSBT recounted this spring. The festival happens once a year. Gift sets from a local popcorn shop can go out in every holiday box between now and New Year's.
The Ride to O'Hare Leaves From a Hangar on Murvihill Road
The fourth business sits at the edge of town, and it matters most once the holidays arrive. City Zoom runs shared shuttles to and from Chicago O'Hare with Northwest Indiana pickups in Valparaiso, Portage and Hammond. Owner Brian Sheely described the goal as making it easier for Northwest Indiana travelers to reach O'Hare without driving to Chicago, parking for a week or lining up a ride.
The Duneland Chamber of Commerce has scheduled City Zoom's grand opening ribbon cutting for tomorrow, Thursday, October 8, from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. It will be held at 4601 Murvihill Road inside the company's working hangar, with live music, a bar and appetizers on the program. Rides are booked through flycityzoom.com. The launch comes right before Thanksgiving and December, the weeks when a long-term O'Hare parking bill adds up fastest.
One Cold-Weather Week, Using All Four
Put together, these openings fill a November week in a way downtown Valparaiso's calendar couldn't a year ago:
- Monday or any weekday before 4 p.m.: Stop at Front Row Popcorn on Evans Avenue for gift sets, since the shop is closed on weekends.
- Tuesday or Wednesday night: League night at The Golf Lodge, where the TrackMan league runs through December 9. Alpen Haus is closed Mondays, so midweek is when both halves of the building are open together.
- A workshop evening on Franklin Street: A wreath or pumpkin session at Schultz Floral, in a studio built for groups.
- Saturday from 11 a.m.: Schnitzel and a simulator round at Alpen Haus on its longest day of the week, open until 11 p.m.
- Holiday travel day: A City Zoom pickup in Valparaiso instead of a week in an O'Hare lot.
Two of these businesses moved into existing downtown buildings, one took a new name and one opened in a hangar. All four are built to do their most business between Halloween and New Year's.
At Matt Evans and RE/MAX Lifestyles, we work out of downtown Valparaiso, and openings like these show us where the city's year-round activity is growing. If you're curious what that activity means for a home near Washington or Franklin Street, get your free home valuation and we'll walk you through it with local numbers.
