Oak Brook has not had a full-service grocery store since the early 1970s, when the Jewel Food Store that opened alongside Sears and Marshall Field's at Oakbrook Center in 1962 shut its doors. No supermarket has taken its place in the more than fifty years since. Oakbrook Center has remained a major retail destination in the decades since.
This year's restaurant and retail openings, along with a grocery proposal working its way through Village Hall, are also shaping Oak Brook's commercial landscape.
The Fifty-Year Gap
When Oakbrook Center opened in 1962, it came stocked with the basics: Sears, Marshall Field's, and a Jewel Food Store, the kind of anchor lineup meant to make a shopping center function like a town center. The Jewel didn't last. Once it closed in the early 1970s, Oak Brook never got a replacement supermarket, and the center's anchor lineup and offerings have changed over time.
Several notable additions followed at Oakbrook Center: a 1981-82 expansion that doubled the center's footprint, Nordstrom arriving in 1990, Neiman Marcus joining the anchor lineup, a 172-room Le Méridien hotel opening in 2014, and a remodeled AMC Theatres wing with a food hall called The District arriving in 2016.
Recent Restaurant and Retail Openings
The 2026 additions follow the same script, just with sharper names attached.
The Purple Pig, the Michelin Bib Gourmand restaurant that has anchored Chicago's Magnificent Mile since 2009, opened its first-ever second location at Oakbrook Center in early March. Chef Tony Mantuano and co-owner Marianna Bannos took over an 11,000-plus-square-foot former furniture showroom near Macy's, building a full restaurant, a bar with a live hearth and Josper oven, and a Purple Pig Marketplace selling grab-and-go pizza, gelato, and pastries. For Bannos, who was born in Oak Brook, it was framed as a homecoming rather than an expansion. The restaurant's opening drew coverage from the Daily Herald, which noted the space includes two private dining areas and a 60-seat patio that opened in May.
Two months later, UNIQLO opened its third Chicago-area store, a two-level location at Oakbrook Center that debuted May 15 with a three-day grand opening built around Taiko drum performances, custom tote bags designed by artist JC Rivera, and treats from Garrett Popcorn and Stan's Donuts. NBC Chicago quoted UNIQLO USA CEO Fuminori Adachi on the company's approach to picking store locations:
"Our strategy is about thoughtful growth, opening the right stores in the right places."
Oak Brook made that list alongside a reopened Michigan Avenue flagship, according to reporting from NBC Chicago.
Blue Bottle Coffee moved in the same season, and STK Steakhouse, sitting just across 22nd Street from the mall, continues to draw shoppers looking for dinner and drinks after a day at Oakbrook Center. These destination brands are part of the commercial activity around Oakbrook Center.
The Grocery Proposal Working Its Way Through Village Hall
Amazon has floated a large-format concept for Oak Brook of roughly 225,000 square feet, about 50 percent larger than a typical Costco, blending a full grocery department with pharmacy, household goods, and electronics. As of spring 2026, the proposal was moving through the Village of Oak Brook's review process, starting with a conceptual presentation to the Village Board and headed toward public hearings before the Planning and Zoning Commission.
If it clears that process, it would be the first full-service grocery store in Oak Brook since Jewel closed more than fifty years ago.
Nearby, Oak Brook Commons, a mixed-use project rising on the former McDonald's world headquarters site directly adjacent to Oakbrook Center, is planned with five retail and restaurant pads.
Free Events at Oakbrook Center
Oakbrook Center also hosts free programming that gives residents and visitors a place to gather. Movies on the Lawn runs select Wednesday evenings through the summer with titles like Zootopia and Freakier Friday, timed so shoppers can grab a treat from Lolli & Pops or Molly's Cupcakes before the film starts. Music on the Lawn brings local musicians to a Friday evening concert series starting at 6:30 p.m. Fitness on the Lawn fills Sunday mornings with complimentary yoga, Pilates, and strength classes hosted by lululemon and Life Time. Seasonal touches like the Summer Floral Arches round out a calendar built entirely around the mall's own lawn space.
Oakbrook Center's sales and visitor figures offer a measure of its scale. JLL data cited in coverage of the UNIQLO opening put Oakbrook Center's annual sales above $1 billion with roughly 14 million visitors a year, and Brookfield's retail division has pointed to the property as a model for how suburban malls can reinvest and stay relevant. The nearby Overlook at Oakbrook retail center also sold for $44 million to Dallas-based Crow Holdings.
The Amazon proposal is not guaranteed to clear zoning review.
Watching how a place like Oak Brook evolves through new businesses and proposals such as this one tells you a lot about how the village actually works day to day. If you're weighing a move to Oak Brook or anywhere else across Chicagoland and Southeast Wisconsin, the Lisa Wolf Team | wolfpartners GROUP can walk you through what a neighborhood's commercial center says about daily life there, not just what the listing photos show.
