Jason Sander told The Record North Shore his new cocktail bar is going to "redefine the North Shore's cocktail and lounge scene." Al's Meat Market had operated at 1165 Wilmette Avenue for more than two decades, and owner Joe Spera closed the shop in January to retire. Sander's bar, called The Mette, is taking the space next.
Here's the part that actually matters if you live here: Wilmette didn't have a liquor license that would let a bar like The Mette sell more alcohol than food. None existed. So in December, village trustees had to write one, an entirely new classification, just to let this one storefront open the way Sander wants it to run. The new classification is one sign of downtown Wilmette's shift toward an evening economy it hasn't had in years.
That single storefront is also a small piece of a much bigger reshuffle that's been happening in plain sight for three years, and this is the year it finally clicked into a pattern.
Plaza del Lago Went Upscale. Local Shops Moved Downtown.
The story around Plaza del Lago includes its purchase by a big developer, the arrival of luxury brands, and some longtime shops moving elsewhere. Hermès opened its doors at 1515 Sheridan Road on August 8. Oscar de la Renta soft-opened days later, with its second-floor bridal showroom slated for August 12. Both are the kind of names that used to mean a drive to Oak Street.
Several of the shops that left Plaza del Lago moved about a mile inland and opened on the same two-block stretch of Wilmette Avenue.
Yellow Bird Stationery, a gift and stationery shop that had operated in Wilmette for more than 40 years, closed its Plaza del Lago spot by mid-March 2024 and reopened weeks later at 1199 Wilmette Avenue, tucked between Orvis and Panera Bread. Hanig's Footwear, a family shoe business old enough to have a 79-year history and a 48-year-old sister location on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, left a 28-year run at the plaza for a space in the 1100 block of Wilmette Avenue, between Central and Green Bay. Chantilly Lace, the intimate-apparel and bra-fitting shop that's been in Wilmette since 1995, went back to a storefront at 1177 Wilmette Avenue that owner Larisa Olson told The Record North Shore she'd "always dreamed about" long before she ever leased it. Giggles and Giraffes, the children's boutique, made the same move.
Here's the table version, because the pattern only becomes obvious once you see the addresses stacked up:
| Business | Left Plaza del Lago | Landed On Wilmette Ave | Detail worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yellow Bird Stationery | Spring 2024 | 1199, between Orvis and Panera Bread | 40+ year Wilmette business |
| Hanig's Footwear | 2023, after 28 years at the plaza | 1100 block, between Central and Green Bay | 79-year-old family shoe business |
| Chantilly Lace | 2023, after moving to the plaza in 2017 | 1177 Wilmette Ave | Operating in Wilmette since 1995 |
| Giggles and Giraffes | 2023 | Downtown Wilmette | Children's boutique |
Four businesses, two exit years, one landing zone. That's not a coincidence of cheap rent. It's four separate owners independently deciding that the same two blocks of downtown were the place to rebuild, which tells you something about foot traffic and rent economics in that stretch that no single closure announcement would.
Meanwhile the plaza itself hasn't sat empty behind them. Rosati's Pizza closed its plaza location outright. Char Crews shut down entirely. John Plunkett Interiors relocated to Winnetka, and the space it left behind, which had also once housed Convito Cafe & Market before Convito moved deeper into the center, is now The Henry, which opened June 3 as a 5,400-square-foot all-day restaurant built around a circular bar, and which hired 164 staff to run it.
The plaza now features a national restaurant concept and two major fashion names. Downtown Wilmette Avenue, meanwhile, has picked up four established local businesses that arrived with existing customer bases instead of building one from scratch. Neither side of that trade is losing exactly, but the two blocks between Central and Green Bay are now doing something they haven't done in decades: functioning as the address where Wilmette's oldest retail names actually cluster, instead of being scattered one or two per shopping center.
It's not only the old guard filling in that stretch either. Small Cheval, the burger spinoff of Chicago's Au Cheval, took over the former Depot Nuevo building at 1139 Wilmette Avenue. Add The Mette moving into the space Al's vacated, and downtown Wilmette Avenue is quietly becoming a mixed corridor: decades-old family retail, a nationally known burger counter, and a bar built around a liquor classification the village didn't have a year ago.
What Happened at This Year's Block Party
The most visible piece of all this was the Wilmette Block Party earlier this year. The event turned five, running noon to 10 p.m. across the Village Center on Wilmette and Central Avenues. The park district canceled the traditional July 3 fireworks this year and redirected that budget into something new: Wilmette's first synchronized drone show, timed for 8:45 p.m. and themed around the country's 250th anniversary. Fireworks are set to return in 2027.
The day's schedule included:
- Foam Zone, noon to 2 p.m.
- Jesse White Tumblers, 2:30 p.m.
- Hoopla on the main stage, 3 p.m.
- Miss Make-Believe on the Kids Zone stage, 4 p.m.
- Jump Zone with inflatables and a trackless train, 2 to 7 p.m.
- Second Hand News, 5:30 p.m.
- Final Say closing out the main stage, 8 p.m.
Last year's event raised nearly $47,000 with 22 sponsors and 40 Kids Zone booths, setting the baseline this year's version aimed to beat.
The block party was just one Saturday. The village's summer season, though, still has a few weeks of runway left. Sounds of Summer concerts continue at Wallace Bowl and the Village Green through at least September 10. Labor Day, September 7, is also the last day of the regular pool season at Centennial Family Aquatic Center and the date of the Quack 'N Splash Duck Derby there. The Wilmette French Market keeps running Saturday mornings from 8 to 1 through October 31. And if you're the kind of resident who marks the calendar by road cycling, the 41st annual North Shore Century starts and finishes at the Gillson Park Lakeview Center on September 20, with route options at 25, 50, 62, and 100 miles through the North Shore's tree-lined streets.
None of that is the story people will be telling in five years, though. What people will actually remember is that the year Hermès and Oscar de la Renta arrived at the lake, the same handful of family businesses that had quietly operated in Wilmette for generations ended up two blocks away from each other on the same downtown street, for the first time most current residents can recall. That's not a coincidence built from any one closure. It's four separate decisions that landed in the same place, plus a liquor ordinance the village had to invent from scratch to keep the block moving after dark.
Walk that stretch of Wilmette Avenue this fall and you'll see it for yourself: a long-established shoe store, a stationery shop that's outlasted three decades of neighbors, an intimate-apparel business back in the space its owner wanted the whole time, and construction signage where a family butcher counter used to be.
Ginny Homes has spent years watching how these small shifts in a town's daily geography tend to say more about a neighborhood's direction than any single headline does. If you're curious what a stretch like this means for a specific block or a specific home in Wilmette or the surrounding North Shore, Ginny Homes would be glad to walk through it with you. Schedule a Private Consultation any time.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
