For two years, the corner storefront at Armitage and California drew curious looks and door knocks from neighbors wondering what was going on inside. It used to be a corner store. Now it's furnished with warm antique pieces from Dial M For Modern, vintage art, and designs from the local women-led company Siren Betty. Since September 11, it has been Logan Inn.
Farther north on the same street, a dining room that closed in early 2020 reopened on October 1 under a new name. Between those two addresses is a sushi restaurant that moved into the former Testaccio space in April. This year's most talked-about Logan Square openings went into rooms that already had a history. As a group, they give N. California Avenue hours from 7 a.m. coffee to a 1 a.m. weekend last call.
Two Years Behind a Corner-Store Window
Logan Inn sits at 2001 N. California Ave., on the ground floor of the Logan Square SRO hotel at 2003 N. California. The hotel reopened in 2024 after its owners bought the building and rehabbed all 28 rooms. The same team owns both businesses. Co-owner Kiva Wenig spent 10 years with Lettuce Entertain You before this project, and he told Block Club Chicago that he and some of the team live in the neighborhood.
The room runs in two shifts. In the morning, cafe manager Eli Dawson serves maple bourbon cream lattes, black tahini lattes, and peach cardamom cold brew. Pastries come from Meg Galus of The Good Ambler, alongside salads and Italian sandwiches on focaccia. Wenig's favorite is the mortadella sandwich, made with burrata, pistachio pesto, honey, and radicchio. In the late afternoon, the bar takes over under Taylor Lauder, who has run cocktail programs at MONEYGUN, Pearl Club, and Lazy Bird. The menu sticks to classic negronis, martinis, and spritzes, and you can order half a lunch sandwich at the bar.
The hours on Logan Inn's own site are a bit tighter than the ones in the opening coverage. The cafe opens at 7 a.m. Tuesday through Friday and 8 a.m. on weekends, closing at 4 p.m. The bar runs until 11 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday and on Sunday, and until 1 a.m. Friday and Saturday. It's closed Mondays. The owners have also planned a large sign facing Armitage that spells out the name vertically, in a style similar to the Logan Theater's.
The Room That Waited Six Years
Hooligan took over 2528 N. California Ave., the former Good Fortune space. Good Fortune opened in August 2019 and closed in early 2020 despite good reviews. "For six years, it's been waiting for us," co-owner Tyrone Redic Jr. told Eater Chicago.
The restaurant came close to opening somewhere else first. Chef Christian Hunter won a Michelin Young Chef Award in 2023, and he and Redic had already hosted pre-opening dinners for a Hooligan inside Time Out Market in Fulton Market. Then in January, Time Out Market announced that its Chicago food hall would close. Speed mattered after that. The 50-seat, 2,000-square-foot Good Fortune room needed only a few quick changes, and Redic said the team plans to grow into it.
Hunter calls the result a neo-Midwestern bistro, with classical French technique applied to Great Lakes ingredients. The chicken liver parfait comes with hot water cornbread reworked as a hushpuppy, plus pimento cheese. The caviar service pairs scrambled eggs with paddlefish caviar from a producer near his hometown of Lexington, Kentucky. A $199 four-course menu for two opens with oysters. He explained the name this way:
"Hooligan is my pushback against what the standards of quote-unquote fine dining can be, what it looks like and who's presenting it. We aren't trying to stand out in the sense of being pretentious or fancy. We are going for authenticity."
Dinner runs 5 to 10 p.m., Thursday through Monday.
Every Address Has a Former Tenant
Jinsei Motto opened in April at 2456 N. California Ave., in the former Testaccio. It's a dry-aged seafood and sushi restaurant that cooks over Japanese oak charcoal in a live-fire oven. It ran out of CH Distillery in the West Loop from 2020 to 2025 before moving to Logan Square. As of mid-July, the owners were working toward lunch service and a downstairs cocktail bar, with no timeline for the bar.
Here are all three California Avenue spots side by side:
| Address | What was there before | What's there now | Opened |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 N. California Ave. | Corner store | Logan Inn, cafe and cocktail bar | Sept. 11, 2026 |
| 2456 N. California Ave. | Testaccio | Jinsei Motto, dry-aged sushi | April 2026 |
| 2528 N. California Ave. | Good Fortune, closed early 2020 | Hooligan, neo-Midwestern bistro | Oct. 1, 2026 |
The same pattern continues past California Avenue. At 3601 W. Diversey Ave., the owners of the planned Afterlife Bar and Grill want to turn a former funeral home into a bar while keeping its historic facade and stained glass. Permits and construction are still ahead, work is expected to take at least a year, and no opening date has been reported.
Milwaukee Avenue's Pair Is Still Finishing Its Paperwork
The other cluster from late summer is on Milwaukee Avenue, with its two openings across the street from each other. Mate & Company, an all-day Argentine mate cafe at 2778 N. Milwaukee Ave., opened in late August with Latin pastries from La Nonna. The owners said they planned to add Argentine wine and charcuterie in the evenings once they had a liquor license. According to the city's business license records, a consumption-on-premises license was issued on September 9, though that record lists the address as 2779 N. Milwaukee. We haven't found a public announcement that the evening service has started, so it's worth checking with the cafe before planning a night around it.
Chengdu Impression opened at 2770 N. Milwaukee Ave. in August, in the former Chiya Chai space. It's directly across the street from Mate & Company and is the Sichuan group's fourth location, and a dim sum station is planned. As of the end of August, it was BYOB while its liquor license request was pending.
These two addresses matter again in late November.
Four Sundays Without a Market
The Logan Square Farmers Market wraps up its 2026 outdoor season on Sunday, October 25. Until then it runs 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 2620 N. Milwaukee Ave. According to the Logan Square Chamber of Commerce, the indoor series starts Saturday, November 28. It runs 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on the first floor of 2800 N. Milwaukee Ave., with 12 dates through March 27, 2027.
That leaves November 1, 8, 15, and 22 without a market. When the indoor season starts, it moves the market day from Sunday to Saturday and puts it within steps of Mate & Company and Chengdu Impression. Until then, Logan Inn and Hooligan are both open on all four of those Sundays. Jinsei Motto isn't, since it serves dinner Wednesday through Saturday. A full Sunday using only this fall's openings could look like this:
- 8 a.m., Logan Inn. The cafe's weekend opening. Have a black tahini latte and a Good Ambler pastry at Armitage and California.
- Noon, Logan Inn again. On Sundays the bar opens at noon, and you can order half a sandwich from the lunch menu there.
- Afternoon, Milwaukee Avenue. Try mate at 2778 N. Milwaukee, then cross the street to Chengdu Impression. Bring your own bottle unless the restaurant confirms its license has come through.
- 5 p.m., Hooligan. Sunday is one of its five dinner nights, and reservations are on OpenTable.
Logan Inn closes Mondays, and Hooligan doesn't serve dinner Tuesday or Wednesday, so these weekends are when the two California Avenue spots overlap most. The indoor market opens at 2800 N. Milwaukee on Saturday, November 28, at 10 a.m.
When the storefronts near a Logan Square home change hands, that's part of what we bring to a pricing conversation, and this fall it happened all along California Avenue. If you're thinking about what a new neighbor on your corner means for your own plans, Phair-Hinton Group is glad to walk through it with you. Let's get you home. Schedule a call to get started.
