If you asked most Aurora residents where the city's most interesting new food is landing in 2026, the casino two miles from downtown probably wouldn't come to mind. That's the surprise. Hollywood Casino and Hotel Aurora opened to the public the week of June 24, replacing the riverboat that had floated on the Fox River since 1993, and the $360 million property brought with it a food hall stocked with the kind of Chicago chef names that usually show up in restaurant reviews, not casino press releases.
That doesn't mean downtown Aurora sat still. It didn't. But the casino's arrival is the part of this year's dining story that's easy to miss if you're only watching Stolp Avenue and River Street, and it changes the answer to a question a lot of Aurora residents ask on a random Tuesday: where do we actually go tonight.
What Actually Replaced The Riverboat
The old Hollywood Casino ran as a riverboat operation for more than three decades because Illinois law once required casino gambling to happen on the water. Once that changed, PENN Entertainment moved its Aurora property to land, building a 388,500-square-foot complex at 2500 N. Farnsworth Ave., across the street from the Chicago Premium Outlets. The new building carries a 226-room hotel, more than 1,000 slot machines, over 50 table games including a baccarat room, a retail sportsbook, a spa, and a 12,000-square-foot event center, according to PENN Entertainment's opening announcement.
The city had skin in this. Aurora backed the project through tax increment financing, an $8 million land contribution, and $50 million in general-obligation bonds loaned to PENN, with the expectation that new property tax revenue from the site will cover the debt. That's a municipal bet on a much bigger version of a business that had operated quietly on the river for 33 years, and it's worth knowing if you're trying to understand why the city pushed this particular project through.
The Food Hall Nobody Expected To Be This Good
The part that actually matters for a Tuesday night decision is Boulevard Food & Drink Hall, run by McClain Camarota Hospitality under James Beard Award winning chef Shawn McClain. It's open to all ages, with indoor seating and an outdoor patio built around a fire feature, and the roster reads like a greatest-hits list pulled from Chicago's dining scene rather than a typical casino food court.
| Concept | Behind It | What You're Actually Getting |
|---|---|---|
| Lucky Goat | Celebrity chef Stephanie Izard | A burger-driven concept from one of Chicago's best-known chefs |
| Urbanbelly | Bill Kim's Cornerstone Restaurant Group | Dumplings, noodles, and Korean-American dishes from the original that opened in Chicago in 2008 |
| Tabo Sushi | James Beard winner Takashi Yagihashi | A counter-service sushi concept reviving a restaurant that once lived in Wells Street Market downtown |
| Five50 Pizza | MCH's own chefs | NYC-style meets Neapolitan pizza |
| Antique Taco | Rick Ortiz | A Chicago staple known for its taco program |
| Pretty Cool Ice Cream | Dana Cree | Another long-running Chicago favorite |
| Red Lotus Asian Kitchen | MCH | Noodle and southeast Asian dishes |
None of that requires setting foot on the gaming floor. A family can park, walk into Boulevard, eat Urbanbelly dumplings or a Lucky Goat burger, and leave without ever touching a slot machine. That's a different proposition than the old riverboat ever offered, and it's part of why the casino's dining lineup is generating its own conversation separate from the gambling itself.
One Tier Up: Sorella And The Sportsbook
Two more dining options sit at a different register. Sorella by Giada, a partnership with Giada De Laurentiis, is an Italian-California fusion restaurant with indoor and outdoor seating, a contemporary bar, and private dining space, built for the kind of night that starts with a reservation rather than a walk-in. The Sportsbook, meanwhile, is a full-service restaurant that seats roughly 163 people around burgers, wings, sandwiches, and shareables, paired with a wall of screens and a craft beer list, closer in feel to a serious sports bar than a food hall stall.
Between Boulevard, Sorella, and The Sportsbook, the new Hollywood Casino Aurora put more sit-down dining variety on Farnsworth Avenue in one opening than most standalone restaurant openings manage in years.
Downtown Aurora Isn't Standing Still Either
None of this happened in a vacuum. Downtown Aurora, the walkable stretch of historic buildings along the Fox River that's long anchored the city's cultural life around the Paramount Theatre and the monthly First Fridays art walk, added its own wave of restaurants this year.
Giardino Trattoria and Pizzeria opened downtown as the second Italian restaurant to arrive in the neighborhood this year. Touché French Creole opened at 6 N. River St., bringing dishes like Louisiana catfish and Bayou crabcakes to a stretch of downtown that hadn't had a Creole kitchen before. And Vicolo, from O&D Hospitality's Chris and Megan Curren, is set to bring an all-day Italian café and restaurant to downtown, with plans to turn the adjacent Skinny Park into an outdoor piazza for al fresco seating. The Currens built their first restaurant, The Graceful Ordinary, in 2021 before choosing Aurora for their second concept.
Megan Curren told the Daily Herald that "Aurora feels a little like coming back home," which tracks with what's actually happening on the ground. Two serious hospitality bets landed in the same downtown blocks this year, on top of an already busy calendar that includes the summer's Mean Girls Mania celebration at the Paramount running through October 11 and the weekly Aurora Farmers Market that runs June through October.
What This Actually Changes If You're Deciding Where To Eat Tonight
The practical shift here isn't that Aurora suddenly has more restaurants. It's that the two most talked-about clusters of new dining opened in genuinely different parts of the city, aimed at different kinds of nights out, at the same time.
Downtown's additions are walkable, chef-owned, and built around the historic core that's already anchored by the Paramount and the Fox River. If you're headed there, you're likely parking once and moving between a few blocks on foot. The casino's dining is destination-style, off Farnsworth Avenue near I-88, built for a car trip that ends in a specific building with a specific parking structure. You're not wandering between five restaurants the way you might downtown. You're picking one stop inside Boulevard or a reservation at Sorella and staying there.
That distinction matters if you've been defaulting to downtown every time you want to try something new, because the casino's food hall is genuinely worth cross-checking against that habit now. A family that wants Urbanbelly dumplings or a Five50 pizza doesn't need a hotel stay or a trip to the tables to get them. They need a parking spot at 2500 N. Farnsworth Ave. and an appetite.
It also means Aurora residents now have two distinct answers to "where's something new," depending on whether the night calls for a walk past the Leland Tower and a stop at a small Italian café, or a drive to a food hall built by some of Chicago's most recognizable chefs. Both openings happened within months of each other in 2026, and neither one was an accident. The city backed the casino relocation with real financing, and O&D Hospitality picked Aurora specifically for their second restaurant after building a name elsewhere. Both bets say something about where people think Aurora is headed, whether or not either one shows up on a map most residents already have memorized.
If you've been noticing how much has changed on both sides of town this year and you're curious what it means for property values, buyer interest, or the neighborhoods feeding into these new restaurant corridors, Selling Suburbs with Steph tracks Aurora's shifts as closely as its listings. Reach out anytime you want a local read on what's actually happening here, not just what's on the menu.
