Melanie Parker fondly remembers hosting her wedding rehearsal dinner at Naperville’s Rosebud back in 2012.
“We had spent time decorating the reception hall and chapel for our wedding out in Sycamore and showed up late for our own party. But they held the table on a very busy Friday night,” Parker, 54, said.
The dinner was everything the longtime Naperville resident said she could have hoped for, and now she and her husband plan to celebrate their “lucky” 13th anniversary at the same place next month.
“I can still remember the chicken Vesuvio I had and look forward to going back and seeing if it is as good in 2025,” she said.
After being closed for renovations for nearly 14 months, Rosebud Naperville had a “soft” opening Wednesday and is accepting limited reservations through Sunday. A full reopening is scheduled for Monday, Oct. 13, according to Marco Micheli, director of operations for the Rosebud Restaurant Group.
For the next two to three weeks, the restaurant will be reservations only, said George Dana, whose family owns the chain.
The restaurant, located at 22 E. Chicago Ave., is part of a larger revamp of the Rosebud brand across the Chicago area as the group commemorates nearly 50 years since opening its first store.
“This is definitely an important milestone for us as a restaurant group,” said Tatiana Boucher, a marketing specialist for restaurant group, which has eight locations in Chicago and the suburbs and one in Boca Raton, Florida. “We really want to continue serving the Chicagoland community, and Naperville is really one of the places that is at the heart of what we do.”
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Earlier this year, the restaurant group reopened its original location on Taylor Street in Chicago’s Little Italy neighborhood. That spot, known for attracting celebrities like Frank Sinatra and Oprah Winfrey, closed in early 2024 and was available only for private events during the renovation.
Carmine’s Chicago, a Rosebud restaurant in Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood, is also undergoing renovations. Once finished, it will include more than 10,000 square feet of dining space, multiple bar areas and an expansive, all-weather outdoor terrace, according to Rosebud’s website.
“We’ve had our Rosebud classic locations for some time, and it’s important to give some love and to really make sure that these places shine and are updating and are really also evolving with the people who are coming in to our locations as well,” Boucher said.
For the Naperville location, that means renovating the space by combining a modern look with historic charm.
A red awning against a white facade and a front stone patio that can be used year-round has replaced the traditional brown brick exterior, canopied entrance and open-air patio. Inside, patrons will find a front bar where they can have a drink while waiting for a table and a dining area that now has exposed wooden beam ceilings, gold-framed quatrefoil mirrors and a central stone fireplace.
“It’s sort of lodge-inspired, but it also has the design memory of Rosebud,” said Peter Harlan, an architect who worked on the Naperville location. “If you go to a Rosebud, like the first one on Taylor Street, you start to see the same color patterns — the black and whites, the reds, the darks — and then we infuse it with other things too.”
Some of those colors can be found in the Naperville location’s dark wood floors, red entrance door, and black and white tiles, Harlan said.
“Most people feel like they’re going to a cohesive place if they’re going between locations, which many people do. It’s really fantastic,” Boucher said.
Rosebud has been a fixture in downtown Naperville since 1997, with the restaurant originally located about a block away from its current spot in the River Square plaza. It’s been in its current location near the Chicago Avenue and Washington Street since 2011.
The restaurant closed for renovations in August 2024 while work was being done to replace the Washington Street bridge simultaneous to other major downtown construction projects. That posed problems for businesses that struggled to keep customers coming in due to lane reductions, reduced parking and congestion. Much of Rosebud’s lunch business fell off, restaurant reps said at the time.
But it all worked out well in the end, Boucher said.
“We’ve been in the business for quite some time, and having these extensive renovations really helps to bring back the beloved Italian spaces that people have been coming towards for quite some time,” she said. “We’re very excited to see the community come back for this reopening as well. We know it’s highly anticipated.”