Chicago, Illinois Local News
XMarket Chicago, Billed as The Midwest’s Largest Vegan Giant Food Hall, To Close
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PlantX’s roller-coaster journey in Chicago will end this weekend as the grocery store turned vegan food hall has announced its closure in Uptown. The vegan company’s XMarket, which opened in summer 2022, just west of the DuSable Lake Shore Drive’s Montrose exit, will shutter permanently on Sunday, November 3, according to the food hall’s owners.
XMarket was touted as the Midwest’s largest all-vegan food hall. The news hit Wednesday afternoon with Chicago vegans rushing to the venue for discounts. Even before cries of inflation driving up food prices during the pandemic, vegans in general have often complained about the cost of meatless and dairy-free goods, whether sold at grocery stores or restaurants. Though the vegan population is growing, and more vegan options are available at restaurants that serve meat, several restaurant owners have worried if they can succeed while depending on a customer base that still is considered niche.
Last year, PlantX, a publicly-traded Vancouver-based company, converted XMarket from a grocer to a bar and food hall with six food stalls, headlined by Chicago’s Kale by Name and location of popular vegan pizzeria Kitchen 17. Another standout was El Hongo Magico, which sold mushroom tacos. In August, XMarket welcomed Impossible Quality Meats, the first restaurant from Impossible Foods. The faux meat company had made a marketing splash earlier this summer with an endorsement deal from competitive hot dog-eating star Joey Chestnut. XMarket continued to sell some groceries — it never sold produce.
The space also housed a vegan sushi counter from the team behind Bloom Plant Based Kitchen, one of the city’s best vegan restaurants. The stall closed months ago, and while Bloom’s chef and owner Rodolfo Cuadros says he wasn’t surprised by XMarket’s closure — he’s been skeptical of the business model since he joined — the sudden closure caught him off guard.
Kale My Name owner Nemanja Golubovic put a positive spin on the closure in an Instagram post, writing that vendors at the market weren’t paying PlantX for rent or other bills, “just [a] small commission from our sales and we kept [the] majority of our money to ourselves.” Kale My Name’s original location in Albany Park remains unaffected.
As is the case at most food halls, the food hall’s owner — not tenants — is responsible for paying shared staff such as busers and dishwashers, Golubovic adds: “That’s why we had [the] opportunity to do very well here, but sadly [the] market couldn’t.”
Elsewhere, rank-and-file workers bemoaned having only five days of notice that their jobs were about to be eliminated.
PlantX Life operates three other XMarkets in Canada. Recently, they consolidated a location in suburban Vancouver at the Locavore Bar and Grill. Sales increased due to the move, according to an MDA shared this summer. That same report showed falling revenue. At $7.3 million in 2024, revenue has fallen 45 percent since 2023. Earlier in the week, the company announced it was expanding its Bloombox Club plant subscription service to Italy.
While most restaurants have struggled after 2020 with pandemic-related challenges like rising costs including inflation, food halls have suffered particularly. This year, Chicago has seen food hall operators like Urbanspace exit the market, and 16” on Center (the owners of Thalia Hall and Empty Bottle) departed from Revival Food Hall in the Loop. Still, XMarket’s challenges seemed to be unique in Uptown, away from a ton of foot traffic and difficult for suburban vegans to find.
XMarket, 804 W. Montrose Avenue, closing Sunday, November 3.
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Ashok Selvam
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