"Twenty years it had been here, so to now reopen the space, it's exciting," Israel Idonije told Block Club Chicago in September, speaking about the bar that used to be M Lounge. The former Chicago Bear could have gutted 1520 S. Wabash Ave. and started over. He kept the Miles Davis portrait on the wall and brought back some of the old DJs for Friday sets.
That choice explains the South Loop's fall better than any single opening does. The rooms coming to life this season are moving into existing addresses and courting existing regulars. They are also arriving later than first promised. Within the same few weeks, a Printers Row venue that neighbors said never felt like a neighborhood place shut its doors less than a year after opening.
The Miles Davis portrait stayed on the wall
Martini Lounge opened quietly in mid-September, nearly a year after M Lounge closed. Idonije took over the bar in fall 2025 from Reginald and MaryAnn Marsh, who had run it for 20 years. Former patrons came back in the first week, he said, and that early support is the point. A neighbor who lives several blocks away was at the preview and told Block Club the space "is both spacious and intimate, and it really makes the area feel unique and larger."
The menu has 12 martinis, split into Classic and Disco sections. The Porn Star is $21, and the Bronx, made with pineapple gin, is $17. There is no kitchen, so food means chips and dip for $10 or olives and nuts for $12. The design is AGN Design's work: about 100 round light fixtures overhead, plus plush green chairs and zebra-print seats. Luke DeYoung runs the drinks. He was previously beverage director at Oliver's, the South Loop speakeasy, and at Buttercup, Idonije's Italian cafe. Hours are 5 p.m. to 2 a.m., Thursday through Sunday.
The cocktails matter less than the lineage. Martini Lounge feels like a continuation of a room the block already trusted, and the founder clearly planned it that way.
A Printers Row room that never became a neighbor
A few blocks north, a different story was wrapping up. Reserv, the restaurant and nightlife venue at 744 S. Dearborn St., opened in December. By mid-September, owner Gerald Joseph had surrendered his business license ahead of an Oct. 16 hearing with the city's Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection. "I'm done. We're closed," he told Block Club, and said 80 employees had lost their jobs.
The closure followed months of neighbor complaints about late-night music and loud crowds. One neighbor told Block Club the venue "doesn't feel like a neighborhood kind of spot" and felt more like a club. The city gave Reserv a list of required changes, including lower music volume and signs asking patrons to leave quietly after last call. At a July hearing, Joseph said he had disconnected two large subwoofers, added security, and raised the minimum age to 30. A city cease-and-desist notice in late August barred live music and admission charges. Ald. Lamont Robinson (4th) had called for the license to be revoked.
Set the two rooms side by side and the pattern is plain. Martini Lounge courted the regulars of a 20-year bar. Reserv, by its neighbors' account, never built a relationship with the people living above and around it. As of October 1, no replacement tenant for 744 S. Dearborn has been reported.
A coffee bar a few blocks west on Wells
On the western edge of Printers Row, the newest daytime addition is taking the same patient approach. Cafe Tabeeb sits on the ground floor of The Cooper, the high-rise at 720 S. Wells St. on the South Branch of the river. It held soft openings over the summer, with a formal opening planned for late August and tentative hours of 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily.
The owners are Tahani Hassan, a former social worker, and Mohammed Awad, an orthopedic surgeon. Both were born and raised in Chicago. They started by roasting at home, moved production to a facility in Naperville, and invested in a Jamaican coffee estate, where they helped replant trees a hurricane had destroyed. The beans are mostly single-origin, from Jamaica, Panama, Guatemala, Colombia, Ethiopia, and Costa Rica. Pour-over tastings and coffee education classes are planned. "Tabeeb" means healer or doctor in Arabic. Their reasoning for the earth-toned, double-insulated glassware behind the marble counter is simple: "When you invite someone into your home as a guest, you bring out the good glassware."
A cafe built around classes and tastings needs repeat customers. Like Martini Lounge, it is betting on the block it opened on.
Promised dates and where things actually stand
The second half of the pattern is timing. In January, Idonije told The TRiiBE that the martini lounge would open in March. It opened in September. That kind of slip is normal in hospitality, and it applies to everything else in the South Loop pipeline.
| Project | Address | First stated target | Status as of October 1, 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Martini Lounge | 1520 S. Wabash Ave. | March 2026 | Opened mid-September |
| Happy's Classic Ice Cream | 69 E. 16th St. | Summer 2026 | Still in development, no date |
| Bar Dimi, Japanese cocktail bar | Not announced | 2026 | Still in development, no date |
| Culver's | 1212 S. Michigan Ave. | Lease signed late 2025 | Permit issued Sept. 18, no opening date |
| Jackson's Ultra Lounge | 1301 S. Wabash Ave. | July 2027 | Planned |
Almost every row is an existing space getting a second life. Culver's is moving into the former Aurelio's Pizza inside the Park Michigan Apartments. Franchisee Baron Waller plans a 5,200-square-foot two-story space with a patio, a second-floor roof deck, and a walk-up window, but no drive-thru. It will be his 11th location. He opened Culver's first Chicago restaurant in Bronzeville in 2018. Kenneth and Christa Hill's Jackson's Ultra Lounge is aiming for the former Scout space on Wabash. On Motor Row, the former Hudson Motor Building at 2222 S. Michigan Ave. is being converted into a 154-room boutique hotel, expected to operate under Hilton's Curio Collection, with a restaurant and event space.
The table also leaves out a project that didn't last. Idonije closed Signature Steak at 1312 S. Wabash Ave. in February 2026, about a year after rebranding it. Even the neighborhood's most active new operator is still learning what holds up here.
The 16th Street corner taking shape
Idonije has drawn his own conclusion from that year. "You need to own the dirt so you can control as many variables as you can," he told The TRiiBE, calling real estate ownership "an important part of longevity." He did not own the building under Signature Steak, his first restaurant. His Pangea Restaurant Group now clusters around one stretch. Buttercup is at 75 E. 16th St., and The Staley, the sports bar, is at 1736 S. Michigan Ave. Happy's Classic Ice Cream is planned for the same block, at 69 E. 16th St.
He pitched the ice cream shop in neighborhood terms. "We're sandwiched between three schools," he said in January. "It's shocking there isn't more ice cream in the neighborhood." He plans 10 to 12 flavors. Bar Dimi, the high-end Japanese cocktail bar, has Fabio Viviani as a partner.
Put that together and you get a single corner of 16th Street with a cafe, an ice cream parlor, and eventually a cocktail bar, a short walk from a sports bar on Michigan and a martini lounge on Wabash. "The South Loop has been like the stepchild of these neighborhoods, kind of an afterthought," Idonije has said. "I think that's changing." His calendar suggests that change will come one reopened room at a time, and later than the first date anyone gives you.
The blocks between Wabash, 16th Street, and Printers Row are changing faster than the opening dates suggest. Buyers who want to be close to that change need to find the right building before it hits the open market. Lucyna Wrucha follows these South Loop corridors address by address and can share homes that are coming soon before they're listed publicly. Get Access to My Private Listings.
