Walk past 821 Burlington Avenue this summer and you'll find a storefront with paper still taped inside the windows. Salerno's Pizzeria & R.Bar closed there in early January, and for most of the year since, the space has sat quiet between Kirschbaum's Bakery and the rest of downtown's restaurant row. If you've lived in Western Springs long enough, you've learned not to read too much into a dark window on Burlington. This corner of downtown has a habit of refilling itself, and usually with someone the neighborhood already knows.
That's exactly what's happening at 821 Burlington. The name going up is Alano Ristorante, and the owner is Chris Elsey, who already runs Hillgrove Tap here in town along with a second location in Tinley Park. Elsey described Alano to the village as an "elegant Italian restaurant" in his liquor license application, with a menu running from appetizers and salads through pasta, pizza, fish, chicken and steaks, plus a bar program built around specialty cocktails and wine. He's aiming for a late October opening and estimates $30 to $45 a person once drinks are factored in. Elsey isn't new to this business. Before Hillgrove Tap, he was managing partner at Francesca's, the restaurant group with locations in Elmhurst and Naperville, which means the person filling this vacancy has already spent years learning how west suburban diners eat.
This Isn't Burlington's First Reshuffle
If the Salerno's-to-Alano handoff feels familiar, it should. The same pattern played out just a few blocks away with a much bigger name.
For almost twenty years, chef Paul Virant ran Vie at 4471 Lawn Avenue, a restaurant that earned him four James Beard nominations and a reputation as one of the most serious kitchens in the western suburbs, city included. Vie closed after a dispute with its landlord over rent. Rather than leave downtown, Virant bought a nearby building and opened Petite Vie at 909 Burlington Avenue, a smaller French brasserie with 65 seats that he designed alongside his wife Jennifer and longtime collaborator Jody Tate. He's been candid that the move was as much about creative reinvention as necessity. Meanwhile, the original Vie space at 4471 Lawn went to Ella's Italian Pub, part of a small regional group with sister locations in Elmhurst, Downers Grove, Wheaton, Geneva and Naperville.
Line up the moves and the pattern is hard to miss.
| Address | What Left | What Filled It | Timeline |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4471 Lawn Ave | Vie (19-year run under chef Paul Virant) | Ella's Italian Pub | Vie closed after a landlord dispute; Ella's took the space |
| 909 Burlington Ave | New building purchase by Virant | Petite Vie, Virant's French brasserie | Opened May 2024 |
| 821 Burlington Ave | Salerno's Pizzeria & R.Bar | Alano Ristorante (Chris Elsey, Hillgrove Tap) | Salerno's closed January 2026; Alano targeting late October 2026 |
Two very different restaurant stories, same underlying mechanic. A well-known operator's space goes vacant, and rather than a stranger or a national chain claiming the real estate, it's someone who already has skin in the neighborhood, either the outgoing chef relocating a few doors down or a fellow downtown business owner expanding into the gap.
What Doesn't Change While the Storefronts Do
It helps to notice what's stayed constant through all of this. Kirschbaum's Bakery has been at 825 Burlington Avenue since 1954, a couple of doors from where Alano is being built out, and it's outlasted every restaurant transition on this block for seventy years running. The Bensidoun French Market has set up its canopies on Hillgrove Avenue in front of Tower Green every Wednesday from 4 to 7 p.m. since early May, same as it has for years, offering produce, meat, eggs and baked goods that rotate by vendor and season. And downtown's biggest single night of the summer, Gathering on the Green, drew families back to Tower Green in late June with live music and a beer tent sponsored by local businesses like Spring Orthodontics and Peterson & Associates Insurance.
None of that is affected by whether the corner of Burlington and Lawn has a French bistro or an Italian pub in it. The civic rhythm of downtown, the Wednesday market, the summer concerts, the bakery queue on a Saturday morning, keeps running underneath the restaurant churn like a separate current. That's worth noticing if you've ever worried that a favorite restaurant closing means downtown itself is struggling. The businesses that anchor daily life here aren't the ones opening and closing. They're the ones that were already fixtures before any of this started.
The Real Story Isn't Turnover, It's Who Keeps Showing Up
Restaurants close in every downtown. What's specific to Western Springs is who tends to reopen them. Virant didn't sell his reputation to an outside buyer and walk away. He moved it two minutes down the street. Elsey isn't a first-time operator testing the market. He's expanding a business he already runs a few blocks over. Even Ella's, arriving from outside Western Springs, came from a group with an established footprint in neighboring suburbs like Elmhurst and Downers Grove, not an unknown quantity betting on a downtown they'd never worked in before.
That matters if you live here and you've watched storefronts change hands and wondered whether the character of Burlington Avenue is at risk of drifting. Based on the last few years, the answer seems to be that this corner of downtown has a strong pull toward operators who already understand the neighborhood, whether that's a chef relocating his own name or a local restaurant owner betting on a second address he can walk to from his first one. The result isn't a static restaurant row. It's one that keeps recasting itself with people who were already in the room.
If you're the kind of resident who tracks these things, the next few months are worth watching. Alano's late October target lines up with the start of the season when downtown leans into its cooler-weather rhythm, right as the summer market wraps and attention shifts back toward the holidays on Burlington. Whether Elsey hits that date or lands a few weeks later, the storefront at 821 Burlington is on its way to becoming occupied again, by someone the neighborhood already knows how to find.
Keeping an eye on what's changing in downtown Western Springs, whether it's a new restaurant on Burlington Avenue or a home coming up in a walkable pocket of the village, is part of how The Anne Monckton Group stays useful to the people who live here. If you'd like to talk through what's happening in this corner of town, we're happy to help. Book an appointment whenever it's convenient.
