Old Post Office food hall, from team behind Empty Bottle and Thalia Hall, slated to open in June

After pandemic delays, an expansive food hall will open on the ground floor of the Old Post Office building in the South Loop this June, and the team behind the project hopes it will help breathe life back into Chicago’s downtown.

The food hall, called From Here On, is the project of Chicago-based hospitality group 16″ On Center, the team behind music venues like The Empty Bottle and Thalia Hall and a bevy of Chicago food and drink spots including Good Ambler and Dusek’s Tavern. 16″ On Center also operates the Revival Food Hall on the ground floor of The National high-rise in the Loop; the Old Post Office food hall will be the group’s third, after Revival and a project slated to open in New York later this month.

Roughly a dozen vendors, all Chicago based, will set up shop in the food hall. They include projects like Familiar Bakery, a partnership between 16″ On Center and former Dusek’s pastry chef Ashley Robinson, who will serve globally inspired pastries, and Phobox, a hybrid venture from the owners of Vietnamese food truck Lunchbox and the Asian American noodle shop Phodega. Other vendors include a 16″ On Center bar, Snorkelbox, and Tempesta Market, a father-and-son run Italian eatery with a location in West Town.

The opening of the food hall, first announced in 2020, was delayed several times because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, the hospitality group hopes the project will play a role in revitalizing Chicago’s downtown.

“This is a really optimistic time,” said 16″ On Center co-founder Bruce Finkelman. The food hall, he said, epitomizes “the optimism that we feel coming out of a pandemic.”

The 18,000-square-foot food hall will be located on the building’s ground floor and spill out onto a riverfront patio accessible via the Riverwalk, where the hospitality group hopes to host warm-weather happy hours, live music and other events.

For now, the building’s massive 3.5-acre rooftop will be closed to the public. The hall will host the only food options in the post office building, according to Amy Donkel, a spokesperson for 16″ On Center. There is a second-floor bar in the building that is available only to tenants and is bookable for private events, she said.

The food hall vendors include a mix of ones that already operate their own bricks-and-mortar shops elsewhere in the Chicago area and those that do not. Tim Wickes, director of food hall operations for 16″ On Center, hopes the food hall model will make it easier for local culinary talent to focus on their work by removing the logistical challenges of running their own bricks-and-mortar shops and restaurants.

The building at 433 W. Van Buren St. was once the world’s largest post office. Designed by Chicago architects Graham, Anderson, Probst & White, who also designed the Merchandise Mart, the building was vacant for about two decades before an $800 million-plus redevelopment by New York-based owner 601W Companies.

Office building tenants at the Old Post Office include Uber, Walgreens and PepsiCo.

In recent weeks, Loop restaurants have said they’re still feeling a pandemic pinch. Though office workers continue to return to Chicago’s downtown, they’re not coming back in numbers matching pre-pandemic levels.

Wickes and Finkelman said they were optimistic people would continue to return downtown.

“We’re seeing more and more people flood down to the Loop every day,” Wickes said. “I’m noticing not having a seat on the train as I come down these days, which is, to others, probably a negative, but to me it feels really great.”

When it opens in June, the food hall will operate Monday through Friday and will close about 7 p.m. 16″ On Center may eventually expand those hours and host events on the weekends, Wickes and Finkelman said.