"It is, in my opinion, one of the most valuable corners in Lisle," Rob Salerno told the Daily Herald in January 2024. "It's what people see first coming into our town."
That was more than two and a half years ago. The building at the southwest corner of Ogden Avenue and Main Street had housed Fox Restaurant. The Daily Herald piece described the downtown entrance as "a boarded-up strip mall on one corner and a semi-vacant building on the other." On Aug. 12, 2026, the semi-vacant side reopened as Sunnyside Social. It serves breakfast and lunch seven days a week.
At first glance, a new restaurant opened at 4700 Main St. But the village spent public money and board meetings to get this corner filled. The original plan had two parts, and only one of them is open.
What Opened, and Who Runs It
Patch reported the opening on Sept. 1. The breakfast menu covers omelets, skillets, bowls and pancakes, from chilaquiles and ancient grain bowls to blueberry cheesecake buttermilk pancakes and taffy apple crepes. The lunch menu has a hot honey chicken sandwich, fish tacos, grilled cheese and smash burgers, and you can order it at any hour the restaurant is open. Sunnyside Social's website lists hours of 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. every day.
The restaurant's own About page doesn't say who owns it. The link to Salerno shows up in hiring. Server openings at Sunnyside Social are posted on a careers page for Salernos Hospitality, Rob Salerno's restaurant group. In 2024, the Daily Herald said the group ran two Lisle restaurants: Evviva! Bar & Eatery near the Metra station and Urban Wine + Kitchen on Main Street. Patch has also listed Salerno's Pizzeria and R. Bar in Western Springs, plus Whiskey Hill Brewing Company, among the group's restaurants.
So the breakfast spot at the north end of downtown comes from the same operator that already runs a restaurant near the station at the other end. That matters for how this corner happened.
How the Village Paid for Part of It
The Fox building needed real work. Officials told the Daily Herald it needed "significant upgrades" to meet current health codes and village building codes. Salerno said he planned to invest "in excess of $1 million," not counting what he paid for the property.
Village trustees approved up to $165,000 in grant funding. It wasn't paid up front. It reimburses specific improvements after they're done, from four sources:
- $100,000 from two village restaurant grant programs
- $15,000 from the retail business build-out program
- $50,000 from a program for exterior renovation of older shopping centers and mixed-use retail buildings
One trustee who backed it was Mary Jo Mullen, who is now Lisle's mayor. In late 2023 she told Salerno, "It's extremely important that that is not only occupied and thriving, but it does fit where we're going with downtown." In the village's Fall 2026 newsletter, Mayor Mullen named Sunnyside Social as one of several new downtown businesses and asked residents to stop in.
The Timeline Kept Stretching
The grant agreement started a clock. Patch's account and the 2026 opening news give this sequence:
- January 2024. The village board approves the business development grant agreement, which gives the group 12 months to finish the work.
- Early 2025. The 12 months run out, and the board grants a three-month extension.
- April 2025. The group asks for more time, citing "delays in the design and architectural plan phase." The village council unanimously approves new deadlines: Dec. 31, 2025, for the restaurant and June 30, 2026, for the deli and retail market next door.
- Aug. 12, 2026. Sunnyside Social opens at 4700 Main St.
The restaurant opened about seven months after the December 2025 date in the April 2025 extension. We couldn't find any public reporting on whether the village extended the schedule again or how the reimbursement was handled. That's an open question about the record, not a finding either way.
The Deli Is the Other Half
The 2024 plan was a pair of businesses. Salerno described a deli with a retail area along Main Street. It would sell pastas, homemade sausages, sandwiches and grab-and-go items, next door to a breakfast and lunch restaurant with outdoor seating. In the April 2025 Patch report, the project at 4700-4704 Main St. still included the adjacent deli and retail market, with its own deadline of June 30, 2026.
That date has passed. As of this writing, no public source we found gives the deli a name, an opening date or a status. Sunnyside Social's home, About and menu pages don't mention a market. The R. Salerno group's homepage doesn't announce one. The Patch opening story covers the restaurant only.
None of that means the deli was dropped. Announcements often trail construction, and the restaurant half took longer than its first deadline too. It does mean the "deli retail shop" in the 2024 renderings is still unaccounted for. As the plan described it, the deli would have been the corner's grab-and-go business, the place for a sandwich or a pound of sausage on the way home.
Downtown Lisle Now Runs From 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Sunnyside Social didn't open alone. The Fall 2026 village newsletter lists three recent downtown openings: Mosaic Coffee & Co., Kaia Bowls and Sunnyside Social. Their posted hours barely overlap:
| Business | Address | Weekday hours | Weekend hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sunnyside Social | 4700 Main St. | 7 a.m.–2 p.m. | 7 a.m.–2 p.m. |
| Mosaic Coffee & Co. | 1012 Burlington Ave. | Mon–Thu 7 a.m.–7 p.m.; Fri 7 a.m.–8 p.m. | Sat 8:30 a.m.–8 p.m.; Sun 8:30 a.m.–6 p.m. |
| Kaia Bowls | 4751 Main St., Unit 2B | Mon–Fri 9 a.m.–8 p.m. | Sat 9 a.m.–8 p.m.; Sun 10 a.m.–6 p.m. |
Sunnyside Social covers the sit-down morning and closes at 2. Mosaic serves coffee, sandwiches and salads into the evening, until 8 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. Kaia Bowls opens at 9 a.m. and runs until 8 p.m. six days a week. Taken together, the three newest businesses keep downtown counters open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on most days, and none of them is a dinner restaurant. The deli planned for the corner would have fit that pattern too.
The Street Itself Is Next
The village is still investing past the storefronts. In the same newsletter, Mayor Mullen wrote that the Downtown Tax Increment Financing District, created in 2015 and originally set to expire in 2038, is being extended through 2050. She said the extra time gives the village resources "to support improvements and encourage continued investment in our downtown."
The village has also secured more than $1.1 million in Surface Transportation Program funding to resurface Main Street. One segment runs from Burlington Avenue to IL-53, and the other runs from Warrenville Road to Ogden Avenue. The Warrenville-to-Ogden segment ends at Sunnyside Social's door. The newsletter doesn't give a construction schedule, so the timing of the work is still an open question.
On the Calendar Within Walking Distance
The corner sits at the north end of a downtown with a busy fall and winter schedule:
- Today, Oct. 10: last Saturday of the season for the French Market in Downtown Lisle Commuter Lot B. It runs 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., and entry is free.
- Oct. 17: Monster Madness at Lisle Community Park, 1925 Ohio St., 3 to 6 p.m. Registration is $20 per child in advance or $25 on site.
- Oct. 15, 9 a.m. CT: public tickets go on sale for Illumination at The Morton Arboretum. The event runs Nov. 14 through Jan. 2, and adult tickets start at $22 for nonmembers.
- Dec. 1–31: the Lisle Park District's Peppermint Path, a free self-guided light walk near Van Kampen Stage at 1800 Short St., open 5 to 10 p.m.
- Dec. 5: Lights of Lisle, with food and entertainment from 2:30 to 6:30 p.m. and the Santa parade and tree lighting at 4:30 p.m. Santa Express rides leave from the Downtown Lisle Train Station at 1000 Front St. Tickets are $24 for residents and $32 for nonresidents, and registration is due Nov. 15.
When the Peppermint Path lights come on Dec. 1, Sunnyside Social will have been open more than three and a half months. The deli half of the project is still the part to watch.
At Angela Walker Homes, we track Lisle's downtown corners, grants and storefront changes because they shape how a neighborhood lives day to day. If you own nearby and want to know how a changing downtown could affect your home's value, ask us for a free home valuation.
