A Chicago Breakfast Icon Comes Home: Ann Sather Returns to Wicker Park After Nearly Two Decades Away
By Socialhood News · Wicker Park ·
It's been nearly 19 years since Wicker Park had an Ann Sather to call its own — and this summer, that finally changed. The legendary Chicago breakfast institution quietly unlocked its doors at 1819 W. Division St. in late July, slipping into the former Yolk space on the Wicker Park–West Town border and completing a homecoming that longtime neighbors have been waiting on for a long, long time.
The new location's story is inseparable from a bittersweet chapter in neighborhood history. Owner Tom Tunney operated an Ann Sather on Milwaukee Avenue in Wicker Park in the early and mid-2000s — but that restaurant closed in 2007 after adjacent construction caused structural issues in the building. "Every time the Blue Line went by, we had some problems," Tunney recalled. "So the city gave me 48 hours to evacuate, and we did, but we left a really good business and a really good rent structure." The neighborhood never fully forgot it. Now, with a far more stable home on Division Street, Tunney is picking up where he left off.
The new Ann Sather location held a soft opening on July 25, two months after Tunney announced he was moving the flagship location of his well-known breakfast restaurant to the neighborhood from Lakeview. Ann Sather has taken over the former home of a Yolk restaurant at 1819 W. Division St., which closed last year — and Tunney confirmed the location opened at 7 a.m. on opening day, with much of the decor and murals of the original Belmont Avenue restaurant recreated in the space. For regulars who made pilgrimages to the flagship on Belmont, walking into 1819 W. Division St. should feel immediately familiar.
The Wicker Park Ann Sather serves breakfast and lunch with the restaurant's standard menu. That means the classics are all here: the Swedish pancakes, the eggs Benedict, the hearty omelettes — and, of course, the cinnamon rolls that have made Ann Sather famous across Chicago for generations. The location also has a dedicated to-go bakery section for its famous cinnamon rolls and other pastries, and will soon add outdoor dining on Division Street. That al fresco option, once it comes online, will make the spot an even more natural anchor for a stretch of Division Street that is clearly hitting a new stride in 2026.
Tunney himself seems energized by the return. "We're very familiar with the neighborhood, and I think the neighborhood is familiar with us," he said. "Our goal is to emulate what we did here on Belmont," Tunney told Block Club Chicago. "We've been pretty successful at it." That confidence is grounded in a track record: Tunney, who represented the Lakeview area in the City Council for 20 years until 2023, has operated Ann Sather locations at 3415 N. Broadway and 1147 W. Granville Ave. as well.
The timing of the Division Street arrival couldn't be more fitting. That two-block stretch of Division was, until this year, a rotation of concepts that never quite stuck — but two full-service restaurants opening within a few hundred feet of each other, one of them a Chicago institution making a deliberate return, is a different signal. Ann Sather's neighbor to the west is QXY Dumplings at 2018 W. Division, and the energy on the block on any given weekend morning reflects the new momentum. This is a season of arrivals, not experiments — and the 2026 class of new restaurants is worth paying attention to because of who is opening them: established operators choosing this neighborhood as their next long lease.
Ann Sather isn't alone in signaling that Wicker Park's commercial corridors are maturing rather than churning. At 1559 N. Milwaukee, chef-owner Rodolfo Cuadros of Amaru opened Port Union, a modern American restaurant and cocktail house, in the space that previously housed his Bloom Plant Based Kitchen — with a menu spanning banana blossom cake, pork schnitzel, wagyu meatballs with mushroom gravy, and Thai-influenced beef tartare, with weekend brunch added in May. Together, Ann Sather and Port Union represent exactly the kind of operator commitment that makes a neighborhood feel less like a proving ground and more like a destination.
For neighbors ready to check it out, Ann Sather at 1819 W. Division St. opens daily at 7 a.m. The cinnamon rolls are available to go from the bakery counter — no table required. Whether you're a longtime devotee who mourned the Milwaukee Avenue closure back in 2007 or a newcomer discovering the institution for the first time, this is one of those rare openings that actually means something. Stop in, grab a plate of Swedish pancakes, and welcome an old friend back to the neighborhood. For more on what's happening across Wicker Park and Bucktown, visit wickerparkbucktown.com.
Sources:
1. https://blockclubchicago.org/2026/07/23/wicker-park-ann-sather-opens-friday-as-bucktown-gets-new-pizza-and-sushi-spots-vajra-reopens-for-dine-in/
2. https://blockclubchicago.org/2026/05/12/ann-sather-opening-in-wicker-park-this-summer-at-former-yolk-space/
3. https://stephanieturnerchicago.com/blog/whats-new-to-eat-and-drink-in-wicker-park-and-bucktown-this-late-summer
4. https://carolcollins.com/blog/wicker-park-summer-2026-every-new-opening-is-landing-on-the-same-two-streets