When Chicago Diner, which has long been a fixture in the city’s vegan and plant-based scene, announced that it would be closing its Logan Square doors for good, the reaction from its loyal customers was expectedly fervent.
A few days before the closing of the restaurant, known for serving corned “beef” sandwiches and convincingly realistic cubanos to satisfy even the meatiest of eaters, many longtime customers huddled into booths for old times’ sake, grieving not just the loss of their favorite local diner, but also many like it.
The Chicago Diner is one of at least four vegan or plant-based restaurants in the city that announced closures in late 2025. And several of them — like the diner on Milwaukee Avenue — had outwardly appeared to be prospering, only to suddenly shut down.
Kitchen 17 in Avondale closed on Nov. 25, after 13 years. The restaurant had become the home of the original vegan deep-dish pizza, shipping over 20,000 frozen pies across the United States. Native Foods, the Loop-based creative, Californian-style vegan eatery, cited financial challenges and lower foot traffic when it announced it was closing on Nov. 28. Chicago Raw in Streeterville ended a 16-year run in November, too.
The Lakeview Chicago Diner location will remain, but for some customers, the larger Logan Square location, with its funky vibe and sprawling bar, held special meaning.
“Honestly, there’s nothing I haven’t done that I didn’t celebrate with dinner here — this has always been a core memory for me. It’s really like a refuge,” said Kevin Hernández, a Logan Square resident who was having lunch at the diner on a recent Wednesday with his partner, Rachel. “It’s a little bit disheartening in the sense that not every place or location can fill that need, of I can go there and just be, feel fine, and now with a lot of things regressing in the vegan scene… OK, well, now where am I gonna go?”
Hernández, 27, has been vegan since he was 15 years old. He’s the only one in his family and friend group that adheres to a strict vegan diet, but celebrating big moments at Chicago Diner was never an issue for a communal meal. The food is actually really good, he said.
Hernández made a point to stop by during the last week of service. He ordered his favorite Monte Cristo sandwich with bacon-style seitan, Creole mustard and a potato hash, and split a stack of pancakes with Rachel.
“I’m pretty sad about it,” he said. “But I get it.”
Michael Hornick, owner and partner of Chicago Diner, was sad too. He said there was an influx of customers during the location’s final weeks, which was deceiving to people wondering why the restaurant was shutting down.
“I was like, if you were here two weeks ago, there would have been one table,” Hornick explained. “I mean, people really stopped coming in.”
Hornick said part of it was the lingering impact of COVID-19 on sales, which have tripled since the pandemic but customers are spending less overall, especially on things like alcohol. That and general economic woes, coupled with the logistical challenges of limited parking along Milwaukee Avenue’s protected bike lanes, made for a situation hard to bounce back from, he said, noting a guest who complained that it took him 25 minutes just to find parking to pick up a to-go order.
“Things like that are the reality, unfortunately. Plus, everybody’s watching the dollars they spend and then they’re using DoorDash and UberEats, and those sales can help, but it’s still highly discounted and it takes away from what we do,” he said. “We’re not a fast casual restaurant and we’re not fast food — we’re a full-service diner.”
Hornick said he intends to always keep the doors open at the Lakeview diner, as they have been since 1983.
“We read the newspaper every day about how restaurants aren’t doing what they’re used to,” he said, noting that the vegan scene itself has gone through many iterations over the decades, affecting consumer behavior.
Like many of his longtime customers, Hornick said he’s been trying to unpack what happened, particularly because Chicago was recently named the “most vegan-friendly city in the country” by the animal welfare organization PETA.
For one, the vegan scene in 2025 is entirely different from what it was in the late ‘80s or ‘90s, when Hornick’s uncle (the original owner) used to borrow books written by nutritionists from the library to research the early versions of the diner’s menu or subscribe to print magazines focused on vegetarianism.
Perhaps years ago, vegan food was considered to be more of a niche concept that diners sought at specialized restaurants. Now, Hornick admitted, one can find a vegan meal at pretty much any restaurant.
“But is it going to be good? I don’t know,” he said.
Part of why all-vegan restaurants are struggling is because plant-based food is everywhere now, offered Sam Toia, president of the Illinois Restaurant Association.
“An all-vegan restaurant no longer holds the same necessity as it once did,” Toia said. “I think a lot of mainstream restaurants throughout Chicago have put vegan options on their menu, and that might have been what hurt some of the specialty vegan restaurants, because a lot of people could go anywhere now.”
Toia added that most consumers now expect restaurants, regardless of category, to offer plant-based options, and recent trend forecasts from industry insiders also back that up. Plus, the percentage of Americans who identify as vegetarian or vegan hasn’t moved much in recent years, at just 4% and 1% respectively according to a 2023 Gallup poll.
In June, a PETA representative told the Tribune it chose Chicago as the most vegan-friendly because of how easy it was “to enjoy classic Chicago dishes” in vegan form, citing Buona’s Italian beefless sandwich and Kitchen 17’s vegan deep-dish pizza. Months later, Kitchen 17 also announced that it would be closing.
But Toia said rising labor and supply costs, plus the thin margins of the food industry, make it even more difficult for restaurants offering alternative menus to make a sizable profit, pushing so many to close doors.
Bloom Plant Based Kitchen was the latest to announce that it too would be closing after a four-year run. Bloom’s Instagram post announcing the closure was flooded with commenters disappointed at the news. The restaurant’s last day is slated to be Feb. 21.
Rodolfo Cuadros, chef and owner of Bloom Plant Based Kitchen, said it was hard to escape the reality of the industry. He ultimately lost money in the venture, but top of mind for him is ensuring his staff is paid through the holidays. If a buyer comes around, Cuadros said he would field an offer, but for now, he’s working on a new chapter for Bloom, one that merges different dietary preferences.
“I respect what I did. I’m proud of what I did. We tried to do things the best way we could, but ultimately it was not sustainable,” Cuadros told the Tribune. “Whether it be because of economic anxiety throughout the country, or a lot of people looking at plant-based as a fad, which I think is completely wrong.”
Nutrition experts have been unpacking — and debunking — fad diets for decades and decades, including Bethany Doerfler, chief clinical research dietitian at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. Doerfler offered that long-term plant-based eating unequivocally has health benefits, but there is consumer fatigue associated with what “plant-based” means.
“People can say, well, I tried that and it didn’t really help me, and I think we saw this with the fat-free days, and we saw this with the low carb days,” Doerfler said. “I think plant-based eating takes a lot of commitment; it’s not as addictive to our bodies. Eating a vegetable-forward meal with toasted beans might be delicious, but isn’t really as addictive and maybe instantaneously pleasurable as eating a burger and fries. People aren’t lining up and down the street for those restaurants like they are with other ones.”
Doerfler said she finds Chicago’s vegan food scene to be more of a slow-food trend, making it harder for casual vegan restaurants to compete with places serving faster options.
“I think that eating plant-based food can be quick and can fit into convenience eating,” she added. “But I think one thing that’s a blessing and a curse in Chicago is we have such a great food scene that people could dine out every night of the week and never eat at the same restaurant.”
The spring dumpling with spring onion, carrot kimchi, peas and mustard beet foam at Bloom Plant Based Kitchen, April 11, 2023. (E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune) Vegan restaurant Bloom Plant Based Kitchen is located at 1559 N. Milwaukee Ave. in Chicago, Dec. 30, 2025. (Terrence Antonio James/Chicago Tribune) A server takes orders at Bloom Plant Based Kitchen, a vegan restaurant on Milwaukee Avenue in Chicago, Dec. 30, 2025. (Terrence Antonio James/Chicago Tribune) Margo’s Flat Bread is spicy arrabbiata sauce, requeson with broccolini and basil at Bloom Plant Based Kitchen, April 11, 2023. (E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune) Customers dine at Bloom Plant Based Kitchen, a vegan restaurant at 1559 N. Milwaukee Ave. in Chicago, Dec. 30, 2025. (Terrence Antonio James/Chicago Tribune) The yuca gnocchi is toasted gnocchi, celery root puree, mushroom sofrito, kale and shaved cashew pecorino at Bloom Plant Based Kitchen, April 11, 2023. (E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune) Show Caption1 of 7A server talks to customers at Bloom Plant Based Kitchen, a vegan restaurant at 1559 N. Milwaukee Ave. in Chicago, on Dec. 30, 2025. (Terrence Antonio James/Chicago Tribune)Expand
At Bloom, the clientele is diverse, Cuadros said. Many returning customers strictly adhere to a vegan diet and seek out the restaurant’s vegetable-forward menu, but there are also customers who may find the menu limiting for flexitarians.
The menu is plant-based and vegan, offering house-made, cultured plant-based cheeses and creative plant-based dishes that mimic seafood, like crispy oysters (made from mushrooms), plant-based salmon (farro with veggies) and sun-dried tomato sashimi. Those items prove one doesn’t need actual fish for ocean flavors, Cuadros noted.
“I never saw Bloom as a vegan restaurant — we were just out to cook the tastiest vegetables that we could,” Cuadros said.
Cuadros said that while he disagrees with the assessment that mainstream restaurants broadening their offerings to include vegan or plant-based items is a big reason for the closures, he’s looking at the broader picture more positively. Though the restaurants are facing headwinds, Cuadros said the concepts he and other chefs and vegan diners pioneered are flourishing in unexpected places. And that he considers a win.
Still, the growing loss of vegan restaurants in the city is especially gutting for diners with food allergies.
Charity Simpson, a customer who was having lunch with her girlfriends the week of Chicago Diner’s closing, said she brings her kids to the restaurant several times a month because the servers understand the severity of food restrictions.
“My kids have food allergies, so it’s a great place where I know I can trust that things are actually dairy-free and gluten-free if they say they are,” Simpson said. “My kids love the grilled cheese with sweet potato fries, the cinnamon rolls and they can also get a shake without dairy.”
Simpson said in her experience, vegan restaurants take dietary restrictions and allergies much more seriously.
“And they have actual substitutes. At many other restaurants, if you can’t have dairy, you almost can’t eat there, or you can’t have a full meal. Sometimes you’re stuck with a salad, because that’s all they have,” she said.
Simpson said she’ll try to visit the Lakeview location every now and then, but nothing will beat having the diner within walking distance. But she owns “The New Chicago Diner Cookbook: Meat-Free Recipes from America’s Veggie Diner,” which came out in 2002.
“They’ve left a lasting impression on so many of us,” Simpson said.
Hornick, the diner’s owner, said that despite the Logan Square spot struggling for many months — some days having a two-hour lull without a single customer — servers would turn a switch immediately as the door swung open. Obviously, he said, he wishes he didn’t have to close.
“But it had to happen for us to keep this going, the reason we do what we do,” Hornick said. “Where else can you go and entertain 200 people in a day and know that the place is going to be spotless when you leave? It’s magic when everything works, it really is.”
