Very little on Lincoln Avenue this fall is brand new. Goosefoot moved off Lawrence Avenue and onto Lincoln. Barba Yianni is serving moussaka again under a different name. The Getaway reopened in late August after an explosion closed it in July. Only one restaurant on the strip, Hazar House, is a truly new name, and it took over a space that was already a neighborhood restaurant. Taken together, the returns point one way. The places coming back are set up around the people who can walk to them.
Block Club Chicago reported that Goosefoot closed its location at 2656 W. Lawrence Ave. in 2024 after 12 years. Its new home is 4520 N. Lincoln Ave. The restaurant quietly opened there in March. Chris and Nina Nugent held off on promoting it so they could refine service and learn the new space, and they planned a grand opening for Oct. 10.
How the Nugents chose the building explains most of what follows. According to Block Club, the couple has lived in Lincoln Square for 25 years. They went looking for a storefront with a second-floor apartment so they could live above the restaurant. They bought the building, a former Italian restaurant, in the winter of 2024 and remodeled the interior, bringing over as many pieces of the original Goosefoot as they could. Chris Nugent told Block Club he found the building during a late-night scroll through commercial listings.
"We always wanted to be on Lincoln Avenue."
Nina Nugent told Block Club that the Lawrence Avenue spot was more of a destination, and that many customers at the new one live within walking distance. The restaurant still draws people from out of town. But the person most likely to be at the next table is now a neighbor, and the new menu is built with that in mind.
Goosefoot used to be the kind of place people saved for an anniversary. It now runs two formats, according to its own menu page:
A 22% service charge and tax are added to both. Wine pairings are $140 with the surprise menu and $80 with loosefoot, and wine is also sold by the bottle and by the glass. The page lists the dress code as business casual and adds a note that the restaurant is no longer BYOB. Longtime regulars who remember carrying a bottle down Lawrence will want to know that before they go.
The loosefoot menu is the one built for a short walk home. On its OpenTable listing, Goosefoot describes it as "relaxed, unpretentious, and free from restraint." It pairs the four courses with wine and artisan craft beer and calls the evening laid-back. The same listing says reservations open Wednesday through Saturday, 5:30 to 11 p.m.
Because the menu changes with the seasons, now is a good time to book. Loosefoot was designed as a patio menu, and OpenTable says the four-course dinner moves into the main dining room during the late fall and winter season. At this point in the year, that means a seat in the room the Nugents remodeled, one floor below where they live.
The menu page also lists the dietary limits. Both tasting menus can handle no shellfish, pescatarian diets and mild nut allergies. Neither can accommodate vegetarian, vegan, dairy-free, severe nut allergy or gluten-free requests, though guests avoiding gluten may be able to eat around it.
The Greek restaurant at 4761 N. Lincoln Ave. returned at its old address. The Infatuation reported on Oct. 12 that Barba Yianni, which closed last year, has returned as Grecian Taverna. The outlet says the classics are still on the menu, including gyros, moussaka, and a broiled half chicken with lemon, oregano and olive oil.
That matches what owner Anas Ihmoud said in the spring. Back in April, Block Club Chicago reported that he planned to keep traditional Greek dishes after the water-damage repairs and add some more modern, fusion-influenced items next to them. The April story was aiming for a mid-May reopening. It took until fall, and an OpenTable diner review shows the dining room was serving by Oct. 7.
Grecian Taverna's OpenTable page puts it at $30 and under. That makes it the opposite end of the avenue from Goosefoot's tasting menus, and a gyro-and-moussaka weeknight is back on the table without leaving the neighborhood. The posted hours list the dining room opening at 11 a.m. with late closing times, but the listing contradicts itself about Sunday, so check the day you plan to go.
Hazar House, at 5047 N. Lincoln Ave., is in the former Jibek Jolu space and serves Central Asian and Middle Eastern food, according to The Infatuation's Oct. 22 entry. It passed a City of Chicago inspection marked as a new license on Sept. 18. It is the strip's only genuinely new arrival this fall, and it took over a room that was already a neighborhood restaurant.
Prices on the Hazar House menu fall somewhere between Grecian Taverna's casual pricing and Goosefoot's tasting menus.
| Dish at Hazar House | Price |
|---|---|
| Manty | $19.95 |
| Pelmeni | $17.95 |
| Lagman | $17.95 |
| Braised lamb shank | $22.95 |
| Shawarma plates | $18.95 to $23.95 |
Every entree on that list costs less than a fifth of Goosefoot's loosefoot menu before its service charge. In practice, the stretch of Lincoln between Goosefoot at 4520 and Hazar House at 5047 now runs from a $225 chef's tasting menu to a $17.95 bowl of lagman, and most of that range is newly filled or refilled this year.
The Getaway belongs on this list too, even though it's a bar. Block Club Chicago reported that it planned to reopen on Thursday, Aug. 27, after a July explosion forced it to close. That makes three returns and one replacement on the same corridor in one season.
Goosefoot's patio menu is moving indoors, and the rest of the neighborhood calendar shifts the same way over the next month. Here's what remains, in order:
The Wine Stroll is the date that lines up best with the restaurant returns. It falls on a Thursday, when Goosefoot is open, and both Hazar House and Grecian Taverna are a short walk up Lincoln. A November evening on this strip can now go from a glass of wine on the stroll route to a $17.95 bowl of pelmeni to a broiled half chicken at a Greek dining room that closed last year and is serving again.
If Goosefoot's move to Lincoln Avenue has you thinking about what makes a block feel like home, or about the row of storefronts with apartments above them that made it possible, I'd be glad to walk it with you. Jake Tasharski and TeamJT work these North Side corridors every week. Contact Jake to discuss your Chicago move.
Compass
2350 N Lincoln Ave, 3rd Flr. Chicago, IL 60614
Jake Tasharski