"You have to win your neighborhood over," Christian Hunter said this spring, reflecting on the restaurant that made his name in Chicago and then closed before he could open his next one. He wasn't being modest. Hunter was the chef who took a 22-seat storefront on North Western Avenue and earned it a Michelin star within nine months, back when nobody in the industry knew his name. Roughly two and a half years later, that restaurant, Atelier, posted a note announcing it was done.
Lincoln Square's Apple Fest turns 39 this year, running its familiar three days on Lincoln Avenue with the same suggested donation and the same cider vendors it has drawn for decades. The walk to get there this October passes a food and gathering scene that looks different from last year's version of the same festival. One of the neighborhood's Michelin stars is gone. A tasting-menu restaurant switched addresses. A former restaurant space found a new tenant. None of it happened because Lincoln Square lost interest in eating well. It happened because the kind of restaurant that wins awards and the kind of place a neighborhood keeps turned out to run on different economics this year.
A Star That Left With A Note, Not A Sign In The Window
Tim Lacey opened Atelier in 2023 in a space on North Western Avenue that had previously housed chef Iliana Regan's Elizabeth. Hunter ran the kitchen, and by fall of that year Atelier held a Michelin star, one of just 15 the city recognized at the time. Hunter left in 2024 to build his own project, and chef Bradyn Kawcak took over the tasting menu and kept the star, later earning the restaurant a James Beard semifinalist nod for Best New Restaurant.
The bet that followed was that Atelier had outgrown its original room. Lacey ran a crowdfunding bond campaign through SMBX that raised close to $500,000, and in October 2025 Atelier reopened in an 1,800-square-foot space at 4544 N. Western Ave. with 14 more seats and its first real bar program. Lacey, a Lincoln Square resident for more than 20 years, said at the time he wanted the bigger room to keep the restaurant rooted in the neighborhood.
Seven months later, on May 15, 2026, Atelier closed for good. Lacey later told reporters the extra seats never translated into enough reservations to cover payroll. In his closing note, Lacey cited financial pressures and thanked Kawcak, beverage director Ali Martin, the staff, and the guests who supported the restaurant.
The Same Block Has Now Hosted Three Restaurants
The original Atelier storefront on North Western Avenue, the one that actually won the star, didn't sit empty. By this fall it had reopened as Izakaya By Aiya, a Japanese fusion spot serving grilled yuzu shrimp skewers and mentaiko udon in a room that has now been Elizabeth, then Atelier, then something else entirely.
That kind of turnover is closer to normal than alarming in Lincoln Square right now. Rudy Flores, president of the Lincoln Square Ravenswood Chamber of Commerce, has pointed out that the neighborhood has relatively few restaurant vacancies even after Atelier's closure, citing incoming openings like Zimi's Pizza, which is moving into the former 016 Restaurant space. Restaurant space here keeps getting reused within weeks of a closure rather than sitting empty for months.
A Different Kind Of Room Near The Davis
Not every opening this year filled a hole left by a closure. Ardor By Chance opened in January 2026 a few steps from the Davis Theater, in the space that used to be Carbon Arc, and it's built for a different night out than a tasting menu ever was. Co-owner Nikola Paunovic has described the concept as an American bar and grill layered with a speakeasy feel, with dark walls, oil paintings, and white tablecloths, plus live jazz every other Thursday. The menu runs from filet mignon and Chilean sea bass to pizzas topped with artichokes and goat cheese. It's a room designed for a regular Thursday, not a once-a-year splurge.
Goosefoot Moved Closer To Welles Park
Goosefoot spent years on Lawrence Avenue running a Michelin-starred tasting menu out of a location most critics called unusual for that level of cooking. This year the restaurant relocated to 4520 N. Lincoln Ave., closer to Welles Park and inside the stretch of Lincoln Avenue that Apple Fest closes off every October. The tasting menu that once required a detour off the main strip now sits on it.
Apple Fest Still Runs On The Same Three Blocks It Always Has
Against all of that turnover, Apple Fest hasn't moved an inch. The 39th annual festival runs Friday, October 2 through Sunday, October 4 on North Lincoln Avenue between Lawrence and Sunnyside, the same stretch it has claimed for decades.
- Friday: 3 to 7 p.m.
- Saturday: 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
- Sunday: 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
- Suggested donation: $5
- More than 100 vendors, with live music and cider from Midwest farms
The format hasn't changed on purpose. What's different is what a festival-goer passes on the way there this year: a Japanese izakaya where a Michelin star used to hang its shingle, a jazz-and-steak room where a coffee shop used to be, and a tasting menu that moved closer to the park.
Hunter is carrying that idea into his first independent restaurant, Hooligan, a casual neo-Midwestern bistro due to open this fall at 2528 N. California Ave. in Logan Square. Back in Lincoln Square, Izakaya By Aiya, Ardor By Chance, and Goosefoot are each building their own following along Western and Lincoln Avenues. Apple Fest opens Friday, October 2, at 3 p.m. on Lincoln Avenue.
If a corner of Lincoln Square like this one, where a Michelin-starred kitchen can close in May, has you curious about what property nearby is actually worth, IKGroup can walk you through it with the same specificity we brought to this post. Request a private consultation and home valuation.
