Why Downtown Glencoe Restaurants Are Thriving in 2026

According to The Record North Shore, Daniel Rakestraw was fifteen when he started washing dishes at Guildhall, the American bistro on Vernon Avenue that's anchored downtown Glencoe for years. Nine years later, he owns his own restaurant two blocks away. RDK Sushi opened at 317 Park Avenue this April. He left Glencoe, learned from a Nobu rooftop sushi bar, and came back.

That homecoming adds a local perspective to downtown Glencoe's recent restaurant openings. Within the past year, two new kitchens opened a few blocks apart downtown: RDK Sushi on Park Avenue and Elyon on Vernon Avenue. The businesses bring different histories to the village.

Restaurant Changes at 667 Vernon

If you've eaten downtown in the last decade, you've probably watched 667 Vernon Avenue change hands more than once without quite registering the pattern. Village trustees laid it out plainly when they approved Elyon's liquor license last fall: the space has cycled through Dewey's (which took over from Vernon's in 2013), Cibo Trattoria, District, and Valor before Merlo's Italian gave it a shot, opening in February 2024 and closing just fourteen months later, in April 2025.

Six concepts have occupied 667 Vernon over twelve years. Nearby, Guildhall at 694 Vernon has remained at the same address over that period, including through the pandemic.

The two addresses reflect different histories in downtown Glencoe.

Two New Kitchens, Different Backgrounds

RDK Sushi didn't drop into a vacant storefront from nowhere. It moved into 317 Park Avenue, the space that housed Meg's Cafe for years before Meg's closed in May 2025. Rakestraw bought the building's other tenant, An Apple A Day Catering, from longtime owner Barbara Lepman that August, and the catering operation still runs out of the same kitchen today. Regulars who'd ordered party platters from that address for years didn't lose it. They gained a sushi counter next to it.

The Record North Shore quoted Rakestraw describing why he thinks Glencoe will back a hometown restaurant:

"everybody knows everybody and they know if you are from Glencoe, if you're from the North Shore"

Chef Ozgur Ozkan runs Elia in Wicker Park and lives in Wilmette, and he chose the Vernon Avenue space through a friend's tip. Elyon offers a chef-driven Mediterranean and Turkish tasting menu, the same format that's kept Elia busy in the city for years.

RDK Sushi opened in a space with an existing kitchen, while An Apple A Day Catering continues to operate from that kitchen. Its owner, Rakestraw, had worked at Guildhall. Elyon brought a chef who had experience with the format at Elia. These are different backgrounds for two recent downtown restaurant additions.

The Rest of the Summer Downtown

The restaurant turnover isn't happening in isolation. It's playing out against a downtown that's been busier than usual on Friday nights.

Writers Theatre, the Jeanne Gang-designed building that opened on Tudor Court in February 2016, joined the Village and the Glencoe Public Library this year for select Friday-night installments of Glencoe Al Fresco. The series brought food trucks and live bands to WLC Park, the small green space next to the theater, with happy hour specials running at the Writers Theatre Bar on those evenings. It's the kind of low-key civic event that doesn't make headlines outside the village newsletter but fills the same two blocks that RDK Sushi and Elyon are competing for foot traffic in.

Later this month, Glencoe's Esplanade is scheduled to host another one of its sunset concerts on August 17, a continuation of the same summer live-music calendar that's kept residents outside after dinner rather than driving elsewhere for entertainment.

And downtown isn't the only place investing in its own kitchen this year. Glencoe Golf Club, the public 18-hole course established in 1921, brought on Open Kitchens as its restaurant provider for a new two-year run, with a new clubhouse and restaurant set to debut this summer overlooking the course. It's a different kind of dining decision than what's happening on Vernon Avenue, made by a public course board rather than an independent chef.

Downtown Glencoe's Restaurant Scene

Glencoe's downtown is two compact blocks along Vernon and Park, walkable enough that storefront changes are visible to residents. At 667 Vernon, restaurant concepts have changed repeatedly since 2013.

RDK Sushi's owner began working at Guildhall as a teenager, and Elyon's chef had experience with a similar menu at Elia. Guildhall and Writers Theatre have longer histories in the village, while RDK Sushi and Elyon are newer additions to downtown.

If you've lived here a while, you've seen storefronts change and reopen. Downtown Glencoe's restaurant scene continues to evolve.

If Glencoe's next chapter, downtown or otherwise, has you thinking about your own address in the village, the Wexler Gault Group has spent years watching these blocks change and brings deep knowledge of the North Shore market. Get a Complimentary Home Consultation whenever you're ready to talk about what's next.