The depository hasn’t heard from parent company Outfox Hospitality, and neither have vendors like Dana Cree Salls, owner of Pretty Cool Ice Cream. Salls Cree, an acclaimed pastry chef and author, tells Eater she’s reached out to Outfox — Foxtrot represented her largest account — but no one has responded. She’s asked for the public’s help in buying inventory that Pretty Cool was to deliver to Foxtrot. To worsen matters? Foxtrot closed on Salls Cree’s birthday.
Despite the challenge, Salls Cree says Pretty Cool is hiring which would make the ice cream shop a nice land spot for former Dom’s or Foxtrot workers. Others in Chicago’s culinary community are stepping up. Derrick Tung at Paulie Gee’s Pizza is offering specials for Foxtrot and Dom’s workers throughout May. For vendors, like Pretty Cool, that need a place to sell their goods, Tung is offering vendors space at his pizzeria on Tuesdays and Wednesdays in Logan Square. Interested vendors can register via a Google Form. Tung says he lacks any direct connections with Foxtrot. His Wicker Park pizzeria is across from a Foxtrot store and some workers would stop in for a slice.
While some note — and resent — that Foxtrot and Dom’s only had North Side locations, one South Sider wants to help. Ed Marszewski of Marz Community Brewing is pushing his brewery’s initiative, Snack Wave, to help former Foxtrot and Dom’s vendors. The program’s purpose is to sell snacks made in Chicago or its surroundings at Marz’s McKinley Park and Bucktown breweries: “If you are a producer or know someone who is a producer who has been affected by the closures, contact us, or please tag them and send them our way,” Marszewski writes on Instagram. “We will do our best to try selling the products in our spots. We can’t guarantee that everything will be a fit with us, but we will consider every product sent our way.”
Signage remains at all Foxtrot’s and Dom’s locations, including in River North where “coming soon” messages are up where Dom’s planned to open. In Lincoln Park, paper signs list Cash App and Venmo handles from former employees at a space shared with Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams, 900 W. Armitage Avenue. A “for lease” sign is also up in the window, though it’s partially covered by painted letters. A small paper sign reads that Jeni’s remains open. Another reads that Jeni’s is “getting a facelift, but are still open!”
Despite the signs, a Jeni’s rep tells Eater that the store is temporarily closed and that they have no further information. Large lines are familiar sights during the summer with customers waiting for ice cream on Armitage. As Foxtrot and Dom’s closures surprised its employees, Jeni’s also seems to need a minute to plot their next step in Lincoln Park.
The debris continues to fall in Chicago where earlier this week, the city saw all 15 Foxtrot convenience stores and two Dom’s Kitchen & Market locations suddenly close. Ex-employees have filed a class-action lawsuit against Outfox Hospitality, claiming they weren’t given proper notice of mass layoffs.
Protestors assembled Friday morning outside of Foxtrot’s commissary in Pilsen, but legal experts remain divided on whether Outfox will be held legally accountable. Earlier this year, unionized ex-workers at the Signature Room won their lawsuit that accused restaurant management of violating the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, a safe measure requiring companies to file a notice of mass layoff with the government. Eater reviewed an email sent to some ex-Foxtrot workers dated 11 p.m. Tuesday, April 23, and signed by Outfox CEO Rob Twyman notifying employees that their jobs would be immediately eliminated and stating the message was following state law. The letter does not mention the 60-day notice the law stipulates and came after the stores closed.
Outfox formed after Chicago-based Dom’s and Foxtrot combined last year. Foxtrot debuted as a delivery-only app in 2016 that expanded into the convenience store space opening locations in Texas, and the D.C. area. Dom’s debuted in 2021 in Lincoln Park. Both entities had major designs on scaling. In the aftermath of the closures, a Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing — which former employees told Eater to look out for — has yet to pop up, clouding the picture of what went wrong. Outfox hasn’t responded to media inquiries and former vendors tell Eater they haven’t heard anything from them either. They now join the graveyard of Chicago grocery brands like White Hen Pantry, Dominick’s Finer Foods, and Moo & Oink.
Grabbed and gone.John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images
But as the legal theater begins to play out, workers are setting up online fundraisers and scrambling for jobs. In Chicago, the 17 potential real estate vacancies (liquidation could slow things down), are creating a feeding frenzy. Independent grocers, liquor shop owners, and would-be restaurant owners are contacting their real estate agents, hoping to cut deals with landlords on some prime retail spaces on the North Side.
Fresh Market Place in Bucktown is an independent grocer that’s become a champion of local vendors, where many chefs from Chicago’s top restaurants shop.
“I would, at the very least, I would listen to an offer,” Fresh Market GM Kostas Drosos says. “I definitely will inquire — or maybe I have inquired already.”
The demand for the Foxtrot and Dom’s locations contrasts with what’s happening on the West and South sides, where residents have clamored for more investment. The city has struggled to find a tenant in Englewood to replace Whole Foods. Locals seeking an upscale retailer with a similar cachet were rendered disappointed by the pending arrival of Yellow Banana, a division of Ohio-based Save A Lot. Some Chicagoans aren’t missing Foxtrot or Dom’s. You can’t miss what you never had.
Meanwhile, Fancy Plants Cafe owner Kevin Schuder spent much of the week trying to reach Dom’s and Foxtrot, hoping to connect them with the Great Chicago Food Depository. He’s had no luck, and his frustrations spiked after a Sun-Times report saying workers were instructed to throw away food. Drosos compares that to when Stanley’s, a tiny independent market on the corner of North and Elston Avenue, was razed in anticipation of the Lincoln Yards development. He remembers handing out business cards and hiring a few Stanley’s workers in the two weeks before its closure in 2019.
“Stanley’s put in notice two weeks out and said ‘Come on in, guys!’” Drosos recalls. “They were giving away the food — come in, we’re going to be closing and we’re giving discounts.”
Foxtrot and Dom’s shared some similarities, but it wasn’t a precise fit. Both wanted to attract upscale restaurant customers. They recruited chefs for cooking demonstrations and sold gourmet items with the chefs’ names. The latter was ripped from Trader Joe’s playbook. The concerns were detailed nicely earlier this month in an article by Adam Reiner in Taste.
But as Foxtrot raced for scale, with locations in high-rent areas like Fulton Market, execs may have skipped a step in establishing community roots, something Drosos says is integral to Fresh Market’s success. In Andersonville, Foxtrot attempted to open near Andale Market, a small independent shop that stocked specialty items from the kind of vendors Foxtrot desired. Locals pushed back.
That disconnect with Foxtrot and its community might be why Palita Sriratana says her sales at Fresh Market and Here Here Market exceeded her brand’s sales at Foxtrot. In November, her company Pink Salt was selected through Foxtrot’s Up and Comer competition, recognizing vendors selling new snacks, dips, and coffees — stuff Foxtrot wanted to scale and sell nationwide. Sriratana makes a Thai chili jam, which belongs in the same genre as chile crunch, David Chang be damned.
Sriratana describes the terms of winning as restrictive. They sounded like the stringent restrictions reality TV show contestants face; to be considered, candidates couldn’t already be in “major retailers.” There were “unrealistic” deadlines as Pink Salt geared up for the holiday gift-giving season — Foxtrot wanted enough jars of jam to stock at 54 stores versus the eight stores initially ordered. Sriratana says “she held her breath” and carried on with production. She says the system feels “predatory to a very vulnerable group of small makers.” Pink Salt is currently free from any restrictions.
“I feel sad for the brands that opened [production orders] and took out loans to meet their scale,” Sriratana says.
Here Here, founded in 2021, aimed to give vendors like Sriratana more control. Disha Gulati founded the startup in 2021 to give chefs including Rick Bayless and Stephanie Izard a digital marketplace for sauces, pasta, and spices, It allowed lesser-known names a chance to establish their brands nationally. Over the past few days, Gulati and Drosos have been inundated with requests from former Foxtrot vendors wanting shelf space. Both say they’ll expedite the process to help. Gulati says she spends much of her time connecting vendors so they could better share their experiences and succeed. She feels that’s why they feel a “strong sense of community on our platform.”
Foxtrot had an eye toward upscale customers.Garrett Sweet/Eater Chicago
Gulati was careful not to villainize Outfox, saying she doesn’t know what pressures they faced: “Them going under might have been inevitable,” she says.
But when discussing how Outfox closed without warning without informing vendors, Gulati says: “One hundred percent they should have done it differently.”
Justin Doggett has sold his Kyoto Black bottled cold brew coffees at Foxtrot since 2021 when the store reps approached him saying they wanted to stock his coffee. He never worried about Foxtrot reverse engineering his Kyoto-style cold brews: “It’s fairly unique, it’s a very niche product,” he says.
Foxtrot represented his biggest wholesale customer — all 15 Chicago Foxtrots stocked Kyoto Black. The sudden loss of the marketplace has forced Doggett to launch a campaign to grow his monthly subscription base, where customers would buy coffee directly from him. He says he’s had zero contact with Foxtrot since the announcement and feels blindsided.
“Their closure represents a loss of thousands of dollars of sales per month,” Doggett wrote in a Facebook post from Tuesday, April 23. “It also devastates my brand presence. People would order from me directly all the time because they first had my coffee at Foxtrot.”
Doggett says he made $120 in coffee deliveries on Monday. If this was in June, prime cold brew season, that delivery could have been larger. He’s looking for 800 new monthly customers; basically converting his Foxtrot customers to direct customers.
Some independent coffee shops, the same ones that Foxtrot sought to compete with, are helping out. Side Practice Coffee and Drip Collective have offered to sell Kyoto Black while Doggett adjusts. He knows that he won’t make up for the loss immediately. He also stressed that the workers he interacted with treated him well and shouldn’t be conflated with the corporate business.
History has repeated itself for Sriratana who has experience with start-ups suddenly closing; Pink Salt was also the name for her Thai food stall inside Fulton Galley, a food hall in Fulton Market. It closed in 2019, without warning, after being open for five months. The space — located less than a half mile west from Outfox’s headquarters — is now a Patagonia store.
“My experience with Fulton Galley made me not trust the partnership with Foxtrot and pushed me to really value independent businesses — I cannot stress that enough,” she says.
Most New Yorkers aren’t shy about telling you about their pride in being a New Yorker, and Nicki Minaj is certainly not shy. The Trinidadian rapper performed Wednesday, April 24 at the United Center. But before her concert, she warmed up to locals with some eye-opening takes on Chicago food.
On Wednesday afternoon, Chicago witnessed a miracle as a “proud New Yawka” complimented Chicago’s pizza scene. She writes on the social platform formerly known as Twitter, that even though she hates pandering, Chicago’s pizza “might be” a runner-up to New York, even though she’s traveled “around the world and even Italy.” The latter part is going to give some Neopolitan pizzaiolo a stroke.
Never thought I’d ever say this; and you guys know how much I hate “pandering”…but Chicago just MIGHT…MIGHT…be runner up… to NEW YORK in *hides my face* in *whispers & runs away* in pizza . I’ve been all around the world. Even Italy -Signed a Proud New Yawka
There are no public signs of where Minaj dined, so it’s unclear what type of pizza she enjoyed or where. These are key points when arguing about pizza. Folks need to know if she ate deep dish so they can offer their preset response that “it’s not the real Chicago pizza” and that “it’s only for tourists.” They need to know if Minaj ate tavern-style pizza so they can comeback with “no one calls it tavern style” and “why didn’t she go the South Side?” Perhaps the less fans know is better when surviving the pizza wars.
Minaj, born in Trinidad and Tobago, also shared some love for an often overlooked portion of Chicago’s population in praising its Trini and Jamaican spots. She writes that Chicago has “really great Caribbean food.” Again, there’s no word where she dined. No doubt, those restaurants would stand to benefit, the same way Jay-Z helped Bronzeville Soullast summer and how Dimo’s Pizza soaked up the attention in May 2023 thanks to a TikTok review from Lizzo.
The Bear and Da Bears
It only took two seasons, but the national media has finally connected the dots between Chicago and The Bear. Minutes after the Chicago Bears selected University of Southern California quarterback Caleb Williams, ESPN’s SportsCenter social channel pushed out a meme that mashed up the TV show and the football team. They used the text “The Bears have a new Chef.” Good thing they proofread. Didn’t want Bears fans to think the team had acquired Patrick Mahomes.
Cafe Selmarie bids a final farewell after 40 years in Lincoln Square
Cafe Selmarie, a European-style restaurant and bakery pillar for four decades in Lincoln Square, has announced a closing date more than six months after founder Birgit Kobayashi declared her plans to retire. Its last seating will be at 2 p.m. on Saturday, April 27, at 4729 N. Lincoln Avenue, according to a rep. Kobayashi, who opened Selmarie in 1983 with late business partner Jean Uzdawani, first shared the impending closure in September 2023 but didn’t specify a date.
Don Pablo’s Kitchen & Bakeshop, a Chilean empanada shop so popular that it utilized Tock, the platform used by upscale restaurants like Alinea, to sell food, has closed in Uptown. Founder Pablo Soto tells Eater that’s he’s searching for a location in the suburbs.
Don Pablo’s, named for Nobel Prize-winning Chilean poet and activist Pablo Neruda, closed on December 31, just over a month before its second anniversary at 1007 W. Argyle Street. “Our lease was up and [we] decided not to renew,” Soto writes in a text message. “Uptown wasn’t the right place for us and we are working on moving to the North Shore.”
Oddly, a move to suburban Chicago (Soto floated the possibility of Wilmette in an Instagram comment) would bring Don Pablo’s story full circle, as Soto and his wife, Julie Morrow-Soto, originally launched the bakeshop in May 2021 as a virtual operation in Glenview. They even intended to unveil a permanent location in Evanston until they discovered the space they’d chosen would need significantly more rehabilitation than anticipated. That turn of events brought the couple to Uptown, where they opened Don Pablo’s in February 2022 on Asia on Argyle, the neighborhood’s bustling Vietnamese-dominated corridor.
Chicago’s hospitality scene isn’t short on empanada options plenty of top-notch renditions of regional varieties that hail from Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina, Belize, the Philippines, and beyond. After the 2012 closure of Rapa Nui in Irving Park, however, it became challenging to find Chilean empanadas in local restaurants. Chilean empanadas are larger and more rectangular than their South American peers, and both baked and fried versions are ubiquitous throughout the country.
Stay tuned for news of Don Pablo’s new suburban location.
Chicago has reached the point in its annual cycle when locals suddenly recall that a four-season framework simply does not apply to this city — a place where one can identify as many as a dozen seasons in each calendar year. Temperatures are up and down; a sunny, temperate day might be immediately followed by dreary rain. It’s hard for restaurants to lure customers out of their homes when the weather is so unpredictable, exacerbating the already razor-thin margins of many local restaurants.
Below, Eater is cataloging both temporary and permanent restaurant closures in Chicago. If you know of a restaurant, bar, or another closed food establishment, please email chicago@eater.com. We will continue to update this post.
Kenwood: Fast-casual Chinese restaurant De Rice Asian Cuisine permanently closed in January at 918 E. 47th Street after nearly three decades in business, according to the Hyde Park Herald. Owner Francis Lee, a Hong Kong native who immigrated to Chicago in 1989, originally opened the restaurant on the city’s North Side before relocating in 2003 to work closer to his two sons, then students at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools. Chicago restaurateur Racquel Fields (14 Parish Restaurant & Rhum Bar, Dawn) is slated to take over the space, but her plans are not yet public.
Lakeview: CRMD, an Ohio-based chain of ice cream shops that wraps its sweet treats in bubbly egg waffles, has closed its sole Chicago outpost after more than a year and a half at 2951 N. Broadway. In late March, an eye-eyed Lakeview resident spotted workers moving equipment out of the space in the wee hours of the morning. The brand has two remaining locations, both in Ohio. CRMD had taken over for Bobtail Ice Cream back in 2018.
Lincoln Park: Neighborhood sandwich shop Branko’s, a staple among DePaul University students and faculty, is closed after nearly half a century at 1118 W. Fullerton Avenue, according to Block Club Chicago. Founded in 1976 by late Yugoslavian immigrant spouses Branko Jordanovski and Jelica Jordanovska, Branko’s opted to focus on serving sandwiches that appealed to college students like Italian beef but wove in a strain of Balkan culinary culture with pickled banana peppers, tomatoes, and herbs from the family’s backyard garden. Other favorites included Balkan bean stew, gyros, and pizza puffs. Gordana Jordanovska, one of the founders’ daughters, took over the shop after her parents deaths in the early 2020s. Jordanovska tells reporters that she still hopes to keep the Branko’s name alive and is looking for a business partner to help find a path forward.
Arlington Heights: Suburban Thai restaurant Bangkok Cafe is permanently closed at 17 N. Vail Avenue after 30 years of business, according to the Daily Herald. Owner Kim Cho, who opened the restaurant in 1994 with her six sisters, tells reporters that the closure resulted from both a downturn in dine-in business following the early years of the pandemic and a series of health issues in her family, including the death of one of her sisters, who was Bangkok Cafe’s head chef. Village officials are reportedly reviewing a proposal for a microbrewery that aims to move into the space.
Evanston: Jennifer’s Edibles, an all-day suburban restaurant featuring American and Jamaican dishes, is permanently closed after seven years at 1623 Simpson Street in Evanston, owner Jennifer Eason announced on Facebook. Eason tells Evanston Round Table that the logistical and financial stresses of running the restaurant weighed on her for some time, so she decided not to renew her lease on the space. She’s since moved on to work in the kitchen at nearby barbecue hit Soul & Smoke, which aims to launch dine-in service this summer at its flagship location in Evanston.
After more than eight decades, Blommer Chocolate is closing its factory at the end of May. The factory opened in 1939, and while chocolate connoisseurs can’t find Blommer by its name on store shelves, the factory makes confections for some of the country’s more popular brands. But for most Chicagoans, especially ones close to downtown Chicago and neighborhoods like West Loop, River West, and West Town near the factory, locals remained enamored due to the random aroma of chocolate wafting from the building into surrounding neighborhoods.
The Sun-Times reports the closure at 600 W. Kinzie Street will cost 250 jobs. The headquarters will remain in Chicago at the Merchandise Mart. In a news release, Blommer mentions a shift in operations. They’re opening a research and development center this fall at the Mart. A Blommer rep didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Chocolate making can be a thorny subject, where foreign farmers are often exploited. Despite its place as a civic institution, Blommer hasn’t escaped controversy over the years. In 2005, the EPA cited the factory for alleged clean-air violations due to smells coming out of the building. The federal agency responded to an anonymous complaint and argued the cocoa dust wafting from the factory was pollution.
One of the city’s best Korean restaurants, Perilla Korean American Fare, stands across the street from the factory. Co-owner Thomas Oh tells Eater that he often uses Blommer as a landmark. Customers might not be familiar with the intersection of Kinzie and Milwaukee, but they instantly know the factory. Before Blommer closed its store in 2020, staff would often stop in to purchase chocolate-covered almonds and other treats.
Oh did recall a quirky episode immediately after Perilla opened in 2019 when a customer complained on Yelp about the chocolate smell on their way to the restaurant: “How does that have to do with anything we are providing you?” Oh says with a laugh.
There’s no word on what will happen to the 5.5-acre site. Oh says he hopes for a new development that will bring more potential customers to the area.
Chicago, where a baseball stadium is named after the founder of a chewing gum company, is often called “the candy capital of the universe.” The National Confectioners Association was founded 140 years ago in Chicago. But that title might be in jeopardy after Blommer’s shutter. As is the custom, Chicagoans often will add an extra “s” at the end of the company’s name. It’s “Blommers” in the same tradition of “The Jewels” and “Soldiers Field.”
A worker at Mars’ Goose Island campus hard at work.Barry Brecheisen/Eater Chicago
Earlier this year, Mars opened a new global research and development hub on its Goose Island campus. This is where experimental M&M’s flavors and Snickers test bars are made. The $42 million wing will allow for more experiments, and hopefully more variety on store shelves.
Blommer says it’s investing $100 million in other production facilities in Pennsylvania, California; and Ontario, Canada. Fuji Oil Holdings, a Japanese company, bought Blommers in 2018 and they closed down the factory store in 2020. They’re the No. 1 cocoa processor in North America, according to Crain’s, which broke the story.
Parachute, a pioneer that’s hailed as one of the best modern Korean restaurants in America, is closing its doors.
The restaurant served as a vehicle for chef Beverly Kim to channel her family’s heritage into something Chicago has never seen before. In May 2014, Kim and her husband chef Johnny Clark opened a destination-worthy restaurant on a quiet stretch of Elston, one of the first to bring upscale dining to Avondale. Nowadays, the neighborhood is grouped as one of the best dining districts in the country with restaurants like Thattu, Smoque Steak, and Honey Butter Fried Chicken.
Parachute presented Korean cuisine in a way few have ever seen in Chicago. “Upscale” and “elevated” can be heard as restaurant cliches. But Parachute helped educate the average Chicagoan who had little knowledge surrounding Korean cuisine a decade ago save familiarity with Korean barbecue. Parachute earned a Michelin star from 2014 to 2021. In 2019, Kim and Clark won the James Beard Award for Best Chef: Great Lakes. Both have been active in community endeavors. They founded the Abundance Setting, a group that supports working mothers in the hospitality industry.
The restaurant at 3500 N. Elston Avenue will close on Saturday, March 23, according to a news release.
Beverly Kim and Johnny Clark at the 2022 James Beard Awards.Barry Brecheisen/Eater Chicago
“Every story has a beginning and an end. And while this chapter of Parachute is closing, it is not the final page,” reads a statement posted to the restaurant’s Instagram page. “We expect to bring something new and exciting to the space under the Parachute umbrella in the not-so-distant future.”
Kim and Clark, who own a second restaurant Anelya — just a few doors from Parachute — say in a news release that they plan on renovating the space and opening a new restaurant. They add they’re also searching for a larger space in Downtown Chicago that could house Parachute.
When the restaurant opened in May 2014, the menu featured items like bing bread, more skewed toward Korean American tastes. The restaurant would temporarily close during the height of the pandemic in 2020. Kim and Clark would reopen the restaurant two years later in 2022 after the space underwent a light renovation. Kim made big changes to the menu, including saying farewell to that bing bread, in favor of a more traditional Korean menu.
During the pandemic in March 2020, the couple hung tough and were one of the first fine dining restaurants to adapt their menus for takeout and delivery as the state kept dining rooms closed. It was unheard of for a Michelin-starred restaurant to offer a takeaway option.
Kim and Clark weren’t immediately reached for comment, but stay tuned for details about what they plan next in Avondale and Downtown Chicago.
While the ownership of the Field House — a home away from home for Cleveland Browns fans for more than three decades — announced the sports bar would be closing on Wednesday, February 28, the Lincoln Park dive won’t be shutting down.
The co-owner of HVAC Pub in Wrigleyville, Nick Ivey, has bought the bar at 2455 N. Clark Street from Field House’s longtime owner Patrick Maykut. Ivey — who took over as co-owner and operator of HVAC in April 2022, partnering with 8 Hospitality Group (Hubbard Inn, Joy District) — says he won’t mess with the sports bar’s “essence” when he remodels the bar; it will stay closed for a bit while crews work. Ivey says he was looking to buy a new bar to give his employees at HVAC new opportunities.
One of his bartenders at HVAC, Savanna Haugse, will be a partner in Field House, as will 8 Hospitality founder Carmen Rossi. Ivey calls Rossi a mentor — they met while Ivey was a bartender at Hubbard Inn. Ivey says he was looking for more of a management and ownership track.
Ivey plans on keeping the bar closed until St. Patrick’s Day when they’ll open just for the holiday. Workers will then swap out the front door for a garage door and spruce up the space. They’ll also serve new cocktails. Ivey isn’t sure how long he’ll close the bar, but he’s not going to rush anything.
“It’s a dive bar — we’re not going to turn it into a nightclub or anything like that,” Ivey says.
The Field House had its quirks, as it would serve shelled peanuts, encouraging customers to drop shells on the floor. This was before society had a clearer understanding of peanut allergies. The bar adopted the slogan “cold beers and crunchy floors.” As Lincoln Park and neighboring Lakeview draw many recent college grads from Michigan and Ohio dying to meet people from the same state after moving to the big city, the Field House seemed inoculated from that scene while carving out a niche as a divey sports bar.
The bar’s workers reportedly tried to buy the bar from Maykut. Maykut rebuffed their efforts, they say. These workers were blindsided by the news that the bar was sold. Staff was reportedly told of the sale over the weekend. An Instagram post called the news “a mix of sadness and surprise.”
Meanwhile, Ivey calls the Field House a community meeting place and he wants to keep the momentum going. Taking over a dive is a complicated matter, and it’s easy to alienate regular customers. SmallBar in Logan Square was recently sold to Footman Hospitality, and Skylark in Pilsen was purchased by a group of the bar’s workers. So far, Ivey has been pleased by the response.
“HVAC Pub is a late-night music venue,” Ivey says. “What we’re looking to do is totally the opposite.”
Look for more news about Ivey’s plans for the Field House in the coming weeks.
The pizza game isn’t easy in Old Town, a neighborhood with a sizable number of transplants without any ties to Chicago’s pizza lore. This has allowed chains like Papa John’s and Domino’s to thrive in a town with plenty of local options.
With its unique Quad Cities thin crusts and special chef approved-toppings, Roots Handmade Pizza, 1610 N. Wells Street, entered the neighborhood in September 2019, and months into its debut the state’s COVID restrictions quickly altered operations: “We opened at a terrible time,” Fifty/50 Restaurant Group co-founder Greg Mohr says.
Adobo Grill was the previous tenant and relocated around the corner after a 2015 fire. Longtime Chicagoans may remember the Victorian home built in 1872. Its most famous tenant was That Steak Joynt, a restaurant that opened in 1962 and closed in 1997. The second floor was supposedly home to numerous seances with folks believing the space to be haunted. The building’s history includes surviving the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.
But after four years, Roots didn’t click as much as Mohr and co-founder Scott Weiner wanted. Fifty/50 is also involved as the food and beverage provider for Second City, whose legendary comedy theater is next door. They needed to try something new, and that’s how Anthony Scardino got involved. Scardino is a veteran Chicago pizzaiolo known as Professor Pizza.
Sometime in March, Fifty/50 will close Roots Old Town. Fans of Quad Cities Pizza will still be able to get their fix of the thin pies that Mohr grew up eating (they’re cut into strips with puffy edges and a malty crust) at Roots Printer’s Row and the original in West Town. Scardino, who since 2023 has been operating out of Tetto, a rooftop bar in West Loop, will take over. Yes, Professor Pizza is now a full-blown restaurant.
“I think this is the most incremental pizza story in Chicago — we’re finally opening a brick and mortar,” says Scardino.
While crews spruce up the space, Professor Pizza will launch with carryout and delivery. The plan is to open the new restaurant in late April. Mohr reiterated that while the space doesn’t need a major renovation — the space won’t be closed to the public for a long duration — Morh doesn’t want folks to feel the only difference between Roots and the new restaurant is the menu: “The goal is to make sure this place, this space, is transformed into Professor Pizza — it’s his concept, his vision.”
Having worked for Paulie Gee’s in Logan Square and Dough Bros. in River North, Scardino is proud of his pizzas. He’s a familiar figure on the pizza festival circuit, not that 2024 will necessarily be fruitful in that aspect. He’s been more interested in finding the right situation and partners to open a restaurant. His story is similar to Henry Cai’s at 3 Little Pigs (the two are friends and worked out of the same Humboldt Park ghost kitchen). Both pop-up shops have gone through multiple locations and flirted with signing leases. Cai continues to work from Molly’s Cupcakes’ kitchen in the South Loop.
Scardino is excited to show Chicagoans what he can do beyond pizza. He says the menu at Tetto is a “truncated version of where our passions truly lie and what we feel we can truly represent from a culinary standpoint.” They’re moving from a kitchen as big as a closet to a “dream kitchen.” The menu will be built out with pastas, sandwiches, and appetizers. Scardino isn’t ready to share details, but he’s excited. As a proud Italian American, he’s got several ideas.
For fans of Roots, cover your eyes — the pizzeria’s famed cheese sticks aren’t making the cut. Professor Pizza wants to be a truly different experience thanks to Scardino’s curiosity and research of various pizza styles from Chicago thin, New York, Detroit, and Grandma style. Part of the fun will be working with Fifty/50’s pastry chef Chris Texiera. The two speak the same language when it comes to bread and the fermentation process. The two are open to experimenting with doughs, which can provide delicious results. Scardino has already been experimenting with dough from deep-dish titan Gino’s East, using it for a special pizza made in a cast iron pan. Having a stable location will allow Scardino to offer more collaborations.
But back to the cheese sticks, Scardino says he has something brewing: “I have something on the menu that pays homage to them for sure,” he says.
Profesor Pizza will continue carry out and delivery out of the West Loop until further notice, he says. They’ll also have at least one more summer season outside at Tetto. He’s still evaluating his options.
Upstairs, Fifty/50’s rooftop bar — Utopian Tailgate — has been hibernating for the winter. The menus will remain separate. But the bigger news is a possible collaboration with Second City. Comedy fans might eventually have a chance to snag a slice of pizza before or during a show. The idea of a slice shop has been bantered about, but there’s nothing firm.
“It makes a lot of sense to me, certainly, but our first priority is making sure the restaurant itself is doing everything it needs to be doing,” Scardino says.
The professor describes comedy as one of his core passions. He’s spent a lot of effort in sending over pizzas to nationally touring comics when they’re in town, names like Sebastian Maniscalco, J.B. Smoove, and Kevin James. Moving close to downtown Chicago should open more opportunities to work with comic talent through Second City, down Wells Street at Zanies, or at United Center, Chicago Theater and other venues.
Scardino says he’s grown into the nickname; it was never his goal to turn the moniker into a brand. Mohr is struck by Scardino’s genuineness.
“This isn’t a made-up concept — this is him… it’s not an act,” Mohr says.
Professor Pizza, 1610 N. Wells Street, takeout to debut in late March or early April; dining room to open in late April
Despite the charms of Chicago winter (see: cozy fireplaces, hot drinks, cuddling), the coldest season is always a challenging time for the city’s hospitality industry. It’s hard to lure customers out of their homes when it’s freezing outside, exacerbating the already razor-thin margins of many local restaurants.
Below, Eater is cataloging both temporary and permanent restaurant closures in Chicago. If you know of a restaurant, bar, or another closed food establishment, please email chicago@eater.com. We will continue to update this post.
Edgewater: Mango Pickle, a multiyear Michelin Bib Gourmand honoree known for modern Indian cuisine, will permanently close after service on Sunday, February 4, at 5842 N. Broadway Street, owners Marisa Paolillo and Nakur Patel announced in an email newsletter. Founded in 2016, the restaurant garnered a following for its ability to balance a casual atmosphere with ambitious techniques, including whole-animal butchery. “We’ll be venturing into new culinary endeavors and adventures, including ‘eclectic pop-ups,’ culinary training, and catering in 2024,” Paolillo writes.
Hyde Park: Jade Court, one of the city’s top Chinese restaurants, will close at the end of February inside the Harper Court development that’s owned by the University of Chicago, says owner Carol Cheung. The restaurant faced numerous difficulties, including adequate staffing and rising food and labor costs.
Lincoln Square: Cafe Selmarie owner Birgit Kobayashi has announced her intention to close the neighborhood bakery favorite around mid-February, though a closing date is not yet finalized, according to Block Club Chicago. Kobayashi first notified fans in the fall that she planned to retire and shut down the cafe in 2024 after 40 years at 4729 N. Lincoln Avenue. She and co-founder Jeanne Uzdawinis founded Cafe Selmarie when they were 29 and introduced the neighborhood to its first espresso machine.
Lincoln Square: Chef Darnell Reed announced on Tuesday that he would close Luella’s Southern Kitchen, a culinary ode to his grandmother, in October after nine years at 4609 N. Lincoln Avenue. Nevertheless, he’s on the hunt for a new location.
River North: Etta, a high-profile daytime spot known for brunch and food cooked in a wood-burning oven, has closed its outpost in River North after more than three years at 700 N. Clark Street. The news came as a surprise to employees, several of whom say management alerted them just hours before their shifts were scheduled to begin.
River North: French restaurant and wine bar Marchesa permanently closed on Saturday, January 20, after six years at 535 N. Wells Street, restaurant manager Francisco Montiel and partner Kathryn Alvera announced in a Facebook post. A gallery-style space with an Art Deco bent, Marchesa opened in 2016, filling the long-vacant former home of Crofton on Wells. “We will always be grateful that after the pandemic we were able to continue with our dream, and indeed grow our business to new heights, but bankrolling a dream such as this one can be cost-prohibitive,” they write in part. “Having the honor of taking care of each of you has been the privilege of a lifetime for our entire team.”
South Loop: Thai restaurant stalwart Siam Rice will permanently close on Wednesday, January 31, at 1906 S. State Street after more than two decades in business so its owners can retire, they announced on Instagram. Originally located on North Wells in the Loop, Siam Rice relocated in 2021 and took over a former outpost of Opart Thai House.
Uptown/Palos Heights: Meat-free street food spot Meek’s Vegan Kitchen has permanently closed its stall inside Uptown’s newish vegan food hall XMarket, as well as its original location in suburban Palos Heights, owners announced in an Instagram post. “While this chapter closes, the spirit of Meek’s lives on in our hearts and memories,” it reads. “We’re immensely grateful for the journey we’ve shared with you.”
January 19
Lincoln Park: Local mini-chain Broken English Taco Pub is closed after seven years at 2576 N. Lincoln Avenue, reps announced in early January on Instagram. The third iteration of Adolfo Garcia and Phil Stefani’s taco-focused cantina marked by a frenetic approach to design, the restaurant opened in 2017 following sister spots in the Loop and Old Town, which remain open.
Logan Square: Passion House Coffee Roasters will permanently close its Logan Square cafe on Wednesday, January 31 after seven years at 2631 N. Kedzie Avenue, according to owner Joshua Millman. The cafe was the first from Passion House, opening in 2017 in the former Bow Truss coffee space. The company also had an outpost inside shuttered food hall Politan Row. Millman says the closure will allow him to focus on the brand’s five-year-old Goose Island cafe located off Division Street and finally unveil a long-awaited new cafe in March in the same building as its roasting plant in Fulton Market. “As this chapter closes, we wish to thank each and every one of you who contributed in helping Logan become an integral part of Passion House’s evolution, and we to see each of you again in the not too distant future,” Millman writes on Instagram.
January 18
Fulton Market: Well-known West Town sushi spot Arami, one of the original vendors at Time Out Market Chicago when the food hall debuted in 2019, has exited its stall at 916 W. Fulton Market after five years. The hall has seen significant turnover throughout its tenure and has already filled the vacancy with a new sushi restaurant, Madai.
Gold Coast: Cafe Sophie, a European-style all-day cafe originally from the company behind splashy steakhouse Maple & Ash, is permanently closed. After an ownership split at Maple & Ash’s parent company, the cafe was no longer affiliated with the Gold Coast steakhouse as the the cafe was operated by partner David Pisor’s reformed company which also includes Etta. Pisor says River North has changed since the pandemic, with folks worried about safety and a lack of foot traffic. He also points to challenges with the building and his growing frustration over spending more money on the space. In July 2022, Pisor’s attorneys blamed design flaws in the building for the cafe’s failures.
Cafe Sophie first opened in 2022.Barry Brecheisen/Eater Chicago
Lakeview: Casual Chicago mini-chain Big & Little’s has permanently closed its last standalone location at 1034 W. Belmont Avenue after a decade and removed the address from its website. The brand’s sole remaining outpost is at Midway Airport.
Logan Square: Roundhouse, a neighborhood sports bar that garnered local attention for unusual food like Italian beef fried rice, is permanently closed after a year at 2535 N. Milwaukee Avenue, according to a former employee. A replacement for 12-year-old fixture Rocking Horse, Roundhouse sought to channel Chicago’s dive bar culture with an ownership group that shared investors with the now-shuttered Uproar in Old Town.
Portage Park: American comfort food spot Bluebird has temporarily closed its second location after a wiring-related fire in early January gutted its space at 3938 N. Central Avenue, according to Block Club Chicago. First responders extinguished the blaze and reported no injuries. Owner Zachary Lucchese-Soto, also behind the original Bluebird in Lakeview, tells reporters that he intends to rebuild and reopen in five or six months. He also aims to raise $3,000 via GoFundMe to help support his staff during the closure.
Rogers Park: An outpost of breakfast chain restaurant Honey Berry Cafe is permanently closed after just four months at 6606 N. Sheridan Road, according to Block Club Chicago. Both Honey Berry Cafe and its predecessor, Bulldog Ale House, are owned by Midwestern restaurant company WeEat Hospitality Group, which operates more than a dozen locations in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Texas.
Chicago Heights: Chicago street food stalwart Enzo’s will close in March at 1710 Chicago Road in suburban Chicago Heights after nearly 80 years in business, third-generation owner Kyle Hallberg tells the Tribune. His grandfather, Enzo Tribo, started selling Italian beef in 1946 inside an old body shop. By the late 1960s, Tribo moved across the street into the former EZ Snack diner, which he bought with business partner Albert Tocco, an infamous local figure in his own right. Enzo’s last day will be Sunday, March 31, according to a Facebook post.
Two dives with more than two centuries of Chicago tavern history between them are making big moves in 2024. SmallBar in Logan Square has sold to new owners and is on track to close the deal on Friday night, February 2. Meanwhile, Skylark in Pilsen has sold to a group of employees who have already taken over operations.
At SmallBar, brothers Ty and Troy Fujimura, and co-owner Jesse Roberts agreed to sell the bar to Footman Hospitality, owners of Quality Time, Sparrow, and Bangers & Lace. Footman’s owners have pledged to keep “the soul of SmallBar intact and reestablish it for its next decade and beyond.”
Ty Fujimura says it’s time to downsize as his family grows older. He currently lives above the bar but plans to move soon. “We have a great opportunity to pass the torch to a really great group of guys who want to keep it SmallBar, to continue the legacy — that’s super important to me,” Fujimura says.
One of the bar’s regulars, Jason Freiman, is a Footman Hospitality founder. “I’ve known Ty for 15 years, I was also a longtime patron,” Freiman writes in an email. “More importantly, historic Chicago taverns are worth saving, I didn’t want to see the bar/property undergo redevelopment into condominiums.”
SmallBar, 2956 N. Albany, opened in 2002, but the space has been a tavern since 1906, says Ty Fujimura. (One of its incarnations was called Fanelli’s.) True to its name, it’s a tiny bar — just 500 square feet — that serves beers from craft breweries from around the country. Tucked away from major intersections, it’s a neighborhood dive with a 50-seat patio — double the size of the interior. Small Bar’s indoor footprint makes it one of the tiniest watering holes in Chicago. It’s got more girth compared to Matchbox, the tiny and narrow West Town tavern.
Ty Fujimura called SmallBar his “happy place” and has witnessed hundreds of first dates (and just as many break ups) at the bar, in addition to the various rapscallions who frequent it. Fujimura compares SmallBar to a first love. “You learn from them and you make some mistakes, and hopefully the next one you don’t make the same mistakes — that’s what SmallBar is to me,” he says.
SmallBar will close for six to eight weeks, according to Freiman. Footman Hospitality has hired Siren Betty Design to spruce up the space. Footman has a history of taking over bars, and in 2014 it purchased Bucktown Pub, a 92-year-old bar.
According to a news release, Footman partner Mike Van Meter is charged with creating a drink menu with “unpretentious riffs on classics.” The beer list will be local and “no-nonsense.” And they’ll still pour fun beer-and-shot combos. Siren Betty is bringing in new light fixtures with vintage elements like 1910s Tiffany-style glass, 1920s Art Deco geometry, and textured walls with patterned wallpaper.
SmallBar’s proximity to Quality Time doesn’t bother Freiman: “No worries at all — the more the merrier,” he tells Eater.
If any new SmallBars open, the Fujimuras won’t be involved as the name has been sold to Footman. At one point there was SmallBar located in Wicker Park and near DePaul University’s Lincoln Park campus, though the latter two were operated by Fujimura’s former business partner who helped open the original in Logan Square.
Across town in Pilsen, the story is similar at Skylark, but it’s a group of employees who have rallied to purchase the bar at 2149 S. Halsted Street. The former owner, Bob McHale, placed the bar for sale with the hopes that a buyer would maintain the space rather than erect a new development on the site. Skylark opened in 2003.
Brian Page, a veteran Chicago bartender who’s worked at places including California Clipper in Humboldt Park, is one of the owners. He told Block Club Chicago that he “hates to see neighborhood bars close down and no longer be fostering community” and that he didn’t want to see the bar fall into the hands of inexperienced owners who would squander what workers have built.
Losing bars to new development is a fear for many lovers of tavern culture. Ty Fujimura says he’s been fortunate to watch Logan Square, and specifically his corner of the neighborhood, change through the years. He’s happy he found a worthy successor at SmallBar and confident he’s handing the keys to folks he trusts.
For years, Darnell Reed has pondered the future of Luella’s Southern Kitchen, the ode to his grandmother which opened in 2015 in Lincoln Square. Should he expand? Maybe it’s time to leave Chicago? For Reed, the father of two girls, being a family man has helped him make his decision.
“My goal is to spend more time with the family,” Reed says.
His lease is up in October and Reed says he’ll close Luella’s sometime that month. He’s in the process of searching for a new location that will serve brunch daily. He’d rather spend his nights with his family rather than offer dinner service. While some items could be holiday specials at the new restaurant, say goodbye to classics like Luella’s gumbo and cornbread. Shrimp and grits and chicken and waffles should make it over to the new place.
So why can’t he stay in Lincoln Square? Reed doesn’t feel the neighborhood could sustain a full-time brunch restaurant with morning and afternoon hours. He’s considering neighborhoods including Bronzeville, Lincoln Park, Logan Square, and suburban Oak Park. Reed says his staff has known for about a year that a change was coming. When he shared the news with the local chamber, they reacted as if Reed could change his mind over the next 10 months. Might as well give workers ample notice, unlike some restaurant owners who don’t give their employees that luxury.
It’s been a journey since opening. Luella’s would open a second restaurant, one that focused on fried chicken, but it closed in 2020, part of the first wave of shutters during COVID. Reed would also open a stall at Time Out Market Chicago, the food hall in Fulton Market. But as rent and expenses increased, Luella’s would depart. Luella’s has also enjoyed success selling food to Bears fans and others at Soldier Field. Reed is hopeful to expand operations next season in the stadium.
After spending 18 years working for Hilton Hotels, Reed reserves a special place for breakfast and brunch with hotel restaurants needing to serve those meals to hotel guests, especially during holidays. The lifestyle is different. Reed also has a bit of a chip on his shoulder. He feels hotel chefs get a bad rap, that they’re not considered as talented as restaurant chefs.
While he’s happy to prove that notion wrong, experience as a restaurant owner has mellowed him.
“It’s going to be a good brunch, and I’m content being with comparisons,” Reed says. “I’m going to give you great food, and if you think somebody else does it better? I think I’m good, and I’ll leave it at that.”
Luella’s 2.0 will be a bit of a departure, but he knows one thing: Grandma’s name will definitely be part of the new space’s name.
In the meantime, fans have a little less than 10 months to visit Reed in Lincoln Square.
After more than a decade on Hubbard Street, controversial nightclub El Hefe has closed its doors. The River North bar, owned by Scottsdale-based company Riot Hospitality, has been erased from the brand’s website.
The duration of the closure, however, remains in question. The company has “suspended operations” at 15 W. Hubbard Street, but would not confirm whether or not El Hefe will return, according to Block Club Chicago. Though the bar developed a bad reputation among locals, River North tourists continued to give the venue business.
A self-described “super macho taqueria,” El Hefe made its Chicago debut in 2013 amid the notoriously bustling nightlife strip in River North, operating as a Mexican restaurant during the day and an adults-only spot for dancing and drinking at night. But as the years passed, troubling incidents began to accrue, culminating in two women filing lawsuits against the club in 2019.
A Florida woman, whom attorneys dub Jane Doe, alleged in a suit that while visiting Chicago in October 2019, she was drugged and raped in an alley behind the bar while security guards stood about 100 feet away. Doe also alleged her attacker was known to El Hefe’s staff. The incident was recorded on a security camera and paramedics went on to transport an unresponsive Doe to the hospital.
That footage inspired a second plaintiff to file suit weeks later with allegations that she was also drugged and sexually assaulted in 2014 at El Hefe and that staff failed to intervene. At the time, according to the suit, a toxicology test and rape kit taken at the hospital confirmed the plaintiff was raped and drugged with Acetone.
For its part, El Hefe released a statement on social media in 2019 responding to the first lawsuit, claiming that its security guards did not witness an assault and promising to cooperate with police investigations. At the time, one of the women’s attorneys called the statement “absurd” and alleged that club management was withholding evidence from law enforcement. A spokesperson for Riot Hospitality later issued a more contrite statement, asserting that “reports like these are unacceptable in any part of our city… Any incident that tears at the reputation of the City of Chicago impacts all of us.”
That tone, however, didn’t extend to a January 2020 court filing in which the bar’s attorneys leveraged a common legal tactic: claiming that Jane Doe “was more than 50 percent of the proximate cause of the injury” — essentially, that Doe was responsible for her own assault.
The move was met with near-immediate criticism, and in the same month, more than 5,700 Chicago hospitality workers signed a petition calling for city officials to suspend El Hefe’s liquor license until police completed their investigations. The petition specifically pointed to the club’s policy of removing overly intoxicated customers through a back door, precisely as alleged by Doe in her suit, thus perpetuating a “dangerous workplace culture.”
Protracted legal battles followed. The second plaintiff’s lawsuit was dismissed for want of prosecution in March 2021, while Doe’s case was dismissed “by stipulation or agreement” (which could mean a settlement) in early January 2024.
Originally founded in Scottsdale in 2010, El Hefe also operated another outpost in Tempe, Arizona, which has also closed. The Scottsdale location remains open. Reps for the company have not yet responded to a request for more information.
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