New Restaurants and Shops in Wilmette: What's Changing
October 1, 2026
October 1, 2026
The Mette's plan for a late-night lounge has prompted Wilmette to consider a new liquor-license classification. Nothing in Wilmette's code allowed a business to earn most of its money from alcohol rather than food. A new classification could allow a cocktail lounge called The Mette to open where Al's Meat Market spent more than two decades slicing brats and grinding burger meat.
The proposed classification reflects a change in the types of businesses seeking space downtown. Downtown was built for daytime errands and dinner reservations, not for a place you'd stay past ten. The mix of new openings and proposals points to downtown Wilmette extending activity across more of the day.
Al's Meat Market, at 1165 Wilmette Avenue, closed after owner Joe Spera retired, ending a run that had passed the twenty-year mark. It was the kind of business Wilmette Avenue has always had: a specialty grocer, open during the day, gone by early evening. The Mette is taking that storefront, and it isn't trying to be a restaurant with a bar attached. It's a cocktail lounge first, which meant Wilmette's existing food-and-beverage licenses didn't fit. The village had to formally consider a new classification permitting a business where alcohol, not food, carries the majority of sales.
That's not a paperwork footnote. It's a signal that until now, nothing on Wilmette Avenue was built primarily around drinks. The village's zoning and licensing code assumed every food-and-beverage business would be food-forward. The Mette is testing whether that assumption still holds.
Another new business has also brought an approval question before the village. According to The Record North Shore, Small Cheval, the counter-service spinoff of Chicago's Au Cheval, spent close to two years working through village approvals before it opened at 1139 Wilmette Avenue in a 150-year-old former train depot that Hogsalt Hospitality bought from the village in 2023. The Record North Shore reported that the rooftop-sign proposal was part of the approval process. Wilmette doesn't allow rooftop signage, and Small Cheval wanted one. The village's Appearance Review Commission voted 4-2 against it in May 2024, and the full Village Board overruled that recommendation and approved it anyway, clearing the way for an August 13, 2025 opening. The Record North Shore reported that Village President Senta Plunkett called it "an important addition to our Village Center."
The two projects brought separate issues before the village: a rooftop-sign proposal for Small Cheval and a licensing classification for The Mette. Downtown Wilmette is seeing a broader mix of retail and dining uses.
Other projects have involved previously vacant sites. The Record North Shore reported that the lot at 200 Skokie Boulevard sat empty from 2019 through most of this year, and it wasn't for lack of interest. Two separate redevelopment proposals for the site collapsed: a McDonald's plan in 2023 and 2024, and before that, a Murray Bros. Caddyshack restaurant that fell apart in 2021 and 2022.
Buttermilk Café, a breakfast-and-lunch chain that started in Geneva in 2014 and has since opened in Downers Grove, Naperville, and Vernon Hills, is finally finishing that space. It's Buttermilk's fifth location and its first as a franchise, run by Glenview resident Danny Shamoon. Wilmette trustees approved an economic incentive agreement in 2025 worth up to $150,000 in sales tax revenue remittance over a decade, structured so the village collects the first $20,000, Buttermilk collects the next $30,000, and everything after that gets split. Shamoon said people have been stopping by the storefront for months asking when it would open, telling a reporter that so many walk in every day just to ask.
Buttermilk keeps daytime hours, typically 7 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., while The Mette could extend activity into late night if its licensing question is settled.
Together, these businesses show how Wilmette's dining day is taking shape:
None of these businesses were built to replace each other. Together, they could fill different hours of the day, extending the range of downtown's dining options.
While Wilmette Avenue fills in around meals, Plaza del Lago is filling in around shopping, and the two are moving in different directions on purpose. The shopping center at 1515 Sheridan Road opened in 1928 as Spanish Court and is the second-oldest open-air shopping center in the country. WS Development bought it in 2022 and has since signed 21 leases for new retail and restaurant space in a property that only covers a few acres.
Seven of those tenants opened in 2025, including Space 519, James Perse, Jenni Kayne, rag & bone, LoveShackFancy, Veronica Beard, and Hill House Home. Hermès has already opened a two-story, 8,000-square-foot boutique there this year, its second Illinois location after Chicago's Oak Street, and 2026 is also bringing Oscar de la Renta, Peter Millar, Thom Browne, and Dôen, the Los Angeles label opening its first Midwest store there, its ninth location overall.
The Henry sits inside that same wave, taking a stand-alone building in the plaza's northwest corner that most recently held John Plunkett Interiors, which relocated to Winnetka, and before that Convito Cafe & Market. WS Development runs Edens Plaza too, where Wayfair opened its first brick-and-mortar department store, in the center's former Carson Pirie Scott building, in 2024 and has been one of the village's stronger sales tax generators since.
Put the two projects side by side and the split is clear. Plaza del Lago is building a shopping destination people drive to. Downtown Wilmette Avenue is developing a mix of businesses for different parts of the day, from coffee to evening drinks. Two years ago, that wasn't true. The Mette's proposed late-night lounge is one example of the changing mix; Wilmette is considering a new liquor-license classification for it.
If you're watching what's changing on your own block and wondering what it might mean for your home's place in the neighborhood, Mary Grant knows this stretch of Wilmette from the ground up. Reach out to schedule a private consultation.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
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