Walk south on Lincoln Avenue past Sunnyside and you'll pass a storefront at 4701 N. Lincoln with a sign in the window announcing a Turkish restaurant called Et Chi. If you've lived in Lincoln Square for more than a few months, you've probably already told a friend about it. Slow-roasted meats out of a gas-fired stone dome oven, the kind of concept that sounds like it belongs on Lincoln Avenue. The sign went up in early March. As of the most recent public reporting on the project, in mid-May, there was still no opening date attached to it.
That gap between the news and the door being open is not a one-off. It's close to how food news works in this neighborhood right now, and it's worth understanding before you plan a dinner around something that technically doesn't exist yet.
The Sign Has Been Up Since March
Et Chi is the work of Ed Duman, who already owns Oromo Cafe next door at the same address block, a coffee and matcha shop he opened back in August 2016. When the tenant before him, Market Square, a shop known for protein shakes, sandwiches and ice cream, closed in November 2025, Duman announced plans to convert the space into what he described as "fine, casual dining," built around a Central Anatolian cooking tradition and a piece of equipment called a Tinuru oven. The concept was reported with a target of opening sometime that summer.
Summer came and went. Signage has been up on the storefront since early March, which is now more than six months ago, and the last confirmed public update still had no launch date attached. None of this means the restaurant isn't coming. Duman runs a business next door and has a clear reason to get it right rather than get it open fast. But if you've been telling people Et Chi is "the new Turkish place on Lincoln," it's worth knowing that the neighborhood has been saying that since March without anyone actually eating there yet.
Two Years Between "Closing" and Open
If you want a longer version of the same pattern, look one block down at Goosefoot. The restaurant opened at 2656 W. Lawrence Ave. in 2011 under chef Chris Nugent, who spent seven years before that at Les Nomades, and it earned Michelin star recognition in 2021 and 2022 before losing it in 2023. In February 2024, Chris and his wife Nina announced they were closing the Lawrence Avenue location and relocating, saying at the time it was to be closer to family.
The restaurant didn't reappear until 2026, when it resurfaced at 4520 N. Lincoln Ave., a more central address near Welles Park. The new version dropped the old BYOB model in favor of a curated wine program. That's more than two years between the closing announcement and an open dining room under the same name. If you moved into the neighborhood sometime in 2024 or 2025 and heard people talk about Goosefoot "coming back," you were hearing about a restaurant that, for most of that stretch, existed only as an announcement.
What's Actually Open Right Now
Not everything follows that timeline. Ardor By Chance, a few steps from the Davis Theater, opened in January 2026 and has been running since. It comes from the team behind North Center's Amano Bistro, with co-owner Nikola Paunovic describing it as an elevated American bar and grill crossed with a speakeasy, dark walls, oil paintings, white tablecloths, live jazz every other Thursday. If you want a genuinely new spot on the calendar this fall rather than a rumor, this is the one with a door you can actually walk through tonight.
The Calendar That Doesn't Care About Any of This
While the restaurant news cycle works through its openings and delays, the neighborhood's actual fall schedule has been fixed for months, run by people who don't need a permit inspection to hit their dates. The Lincoln Square Ravenswood Chamber of Commerce's 39th Annual Apple Fest returns to Lincoln Avenue between Lawrence and Sunnyside on the first weekend of October.
| Day | Time | What's Happening |
|---|---|---|
| Friday, Oct. 2 | 3 to 7 p.m. | Festival opens, live music begins |
| Saturday, Oct. 3 | 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. | Full vendor day, pooch parade check-in at 8:45 a.m. |
| Sunday, Oct. 4 | 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. | Final day, vendors and family activities |
More than 80 vendors set up along the strip selling ciders, apple-inspired dishes, crafts and fall goods, with admission running on a five dollar suggested donation that goes toward neighborhood beautification and local nonprofit support. Dogs need advance registration for the costume parade, with check-in starting at 8:45 a.m. Saturday. None of this is new information in the sense that it happens every year, but the specifics change enough each fall that it's worth confirming before you build a weekend around it.
After Apple Fest Weekend
The fixtures that don't wait on restaurant news extend past the festival weekend. The Lincoln Square Farmers Market keeps running on Tuesdays through November and Thursdays through October, with more than 40 local farmers, artisans and food vendors setting up on a schedule that hasn't shifted with the rest of the neighborhood's churn. The Fall Wine Stroll follows on November 12 from 6 to 9 p.m., with wine distributors pouring samples at participating businesses throughout Lincoln Square and Ravenswood.
Green City Market, meanwhile, closed on a former garden center at 2457 W. Montrose Ave. back in December for $899,000 and had targeted a summer 2026 opening for its nearly 5,000 square foot new home, positioned next to an Aldi and directly across from the long-running Lutz Bakery. Given that target, the space should be operating by now, which means the corner has likely already become the kind of Saturday-morning stop that didn't exist here two years ago.
And the Old Town School of Folk Music, the neighborhood's largest cultural anchor at 4544 N. Lincoln Ave., started its fall session on August 31. The school operates facilities across Lincoln Square and Lincoln Park that include a 425-seat hall, two 150-seat halls, 64 classrooms and a resource center, and its return means the sidewalks near Lincoln and Wilson get noticeably busier on weeknights after 6 p.m., independent of anything happening at a restaurant address down the block.
The Difference That Actually Matters
None of this is an argument against Et Chi or Goosefoot. Both are worth being excited about, and both will likely be worth the wait once they're actually serving. The point is narrower than that: a restaurant announcement is not a restaurant, and in Lincoln Square right now, the gap between the two has run anywhere from six months and counting to more than two years. Apple Fest, the farmers market, the Wine Stroll and the Old Town School's fall session don't have that kind of uncertainty attached to them. They happen on the date they say they'll happen, which makes them a more reliable way to plan a fall weekend than whatever sign is currently taped to a storefront window.
Vincent Viverito and the team at Senior Living Investment Brokerage follow neighborhoods like Lincoln Square closely, because the families and operators who eventually make decisions about a senior living community's future are paying attention to the same block-level details residents are. If a Chicago-area senior living property is somewhere in your plans, reach out to get a Broker's Opinion of Value grounded in the same kind of specific, current information this post is built on.
