Naperville Restaurateur Devon Hargrove Expands Dining Group to Chicago

Devon Hargrove, the founder of Naperville-based Prairie Table Restaurant Group, is opening the company's first downtown Chicago location this fall, expanding a brand built over the past decade around farm-to-table dining in DuPage County.

Hargrove opened his first restaurant, a small farm-to-table spot in downtown Naperville, twelve years ago after working as a chef in Chicago for most of his career. The concept, built around locally sourced Illinois produce and meat and a rotating menu tied to seasonal availability, expanded to three additional western suburb locations over the following decade.

"I always said I'd only leave Naperville if the right building came along downtown, and it finally did," Hargrove said. "This isn't about franchising a formula somewhere else, it's about bringing the same farmer relationships we've built to a new dining room."

The new Chicago location, situated in a renovated warehouse space in the West Loop, will seat roughly 170 guests and employ approximately 75 staff once fully operational. Hargrove said the restaurant group has maintained direct purchasing relationships with several central Illinois farms since its founding, a supply chain he described as central to the brand's identity.

Prairie Table Restaurant Group currently employs around 220 people across its western suburb locations, and Hargrove said the company generated approximately $25 million in revenue last year. He said further expansion beyond Chicago is possible but not currently planned, citing a preference for growing deliberately rather than rapidly.