Ballyhoo Hospitality, the group behind some of Chicago’s best restaurants, is getting ready to open a new restaurant called DeNucci’s, located at 503 West Dickens Ave.
This will be the company’s eighth restaurant, and second Italian concept, moving across the street from the group’s founding concept Gemini. DeNucci’s is inspired by those who traveled from Italy to America in the 1920s, according to the company’s website. The new restaurant is expected to open sometime in Spring 2023. Last year Ballyhoo Hospitality filed permits at 2060 N. Cleveland Avenue, formerly Dickens Street Public House, for the new restaurant, but the official address now lands in the same building, but on West Dickens Avenue.
When DeNucci’s opens, customers can expect an environment that is both authentic and approachable, warm and welcoming, much like the group’s other concepts. The restaurant will only be open for dinner service from Monday to Friday, opening at 4:30 pm. On the weekends, the restaurant will open at 11:30. It will have some high expectations, considering Ballyhoo’s other Italian restaurant, Coda Di Volpe, has made a name for itself in Lakeview. The menu of the group’s first Ianlian restaurant focuses on the lesser-explored regions of Southern Italy and comprises seasonally evolving handmade pasta dishes and house-cured meats.
Ballyhoo Hospitality, founded by longtime hospitality industry veterans Ryan and Anna O’Donnell, has only been around for five years but has been making a splash in Chicagoland’s restaurant industry. Other concepts from the group include Gemini, Old Pueblo Cantina, Sophia Steak, Pomeroy, Buck Russell’s, and Pizza by Sal. It’s safe to say the restaurant group is nowhere close to slowing down on its imprint on the area, considering they are getting ready to open their eighth restaurant in this short amount of time.
