A drive-thru Scooter's Coffee kiosk could soon be brewing along Diamond's busiest commercial strip. Franchisees Jimmy Garala and Andy Kothadia presented concept plans to the Diamond Village Board in late August for a location at 2655-2665 East Division Street, and village leaders signaled they're on board.
Board Signals Support Despite Parking Questions
According to WSPYnews.com, Diamond Mayor Terry Kernc told the village board about the proposed development, which was introduced by Garala and Kothadia for the property spanning 2655 to 2665 East Division Street. The proposal did raise some concern over potential parking issues at the site, but Scooter's Coffee assured village officials that parking would not be a problem. Per Kernc, the village board expressed support for the Scooter's proposal, though the project still needs other items approved at future meetings before it can move forward.
If those approvals come through, construction could begin with a target opening in 2027, the station's report notes. The franchisees' plans call for the same drive-thru-only kiosk format the Nebraska-based chain has used across its national rollout — a compact 664-square-foot structure built for fast vehicular order fulfillment with no indoor seating, according to Fast Casual.
East Division Street's Commercial Momentum
The proposed site sits on East Division Street, which runs along Illinois Route 113 and has become Diamond's principal commercial corridor. The stretch has recently attracted a Jewel-Osco, a Gas N Wash with a Dunkin, a Morris Hospital medical clinic, a Casey's, and an AutoZone, according to the Village of Diamond. Diamond's population sits at 2,702 residents across 1.9 square miles in Grundy and Will counties, about 52 miles southwest of Chicago, per Municibid.
Kernc, who has led the village for more than 15 years and sits on the Illinois Municipal League Board of Directors, said in 2024 that balancing homebuilding with new retail is essential to local quality of life, as reported by Shaw Local. To help attract that kind of investment, the village offers a Tax Increment Financing District and an Enterprise Zone along Route 113, with trustees discussing a September application to extend the zone past its 2030 expiration, according to Citizen Portal.
Part of a Bigger Midwest Push
Diamond would join a growing list of small and mid-sized Illinois towns that have landed Scooter's kiosks in recent years, including Sandwich, Taylorville, Glen Carbon, and Springfield, according to Scooter's Coffee. The chain, founded in 1998 and based in Omaha, had grown to 900 locations across 32 states as of February, after expanding its footprint by 10% in 2025 with local franchisees running nearly all of its stores.
Scooter's ranked 13th on Yelp's 2026 Top 50 Fastest Growing Brands report, marking its third straight year on the list as the second-largest drive-thru specialty coffee chain in the country behind Dutch Bros Coffee. To keep pace with that growth toward 1,000 locations, the company broke ground in July on a 154,400-square-foot cold-storage distribution center in Papillion, Nebraska, following a 2025 distribution hub opening in Whitestown, Indiana.
For now, the Diamond project still needs additional approvals at upcoming village board meetings before shovels hit the ground. If those steps clear as planned, the small drive-thru kiosk would mark the latest addition to a corridor that village leaders have worked for years to fill in with retail and services for residents.
