Looking for a new venue to host your next event? Here are the most anticipated Chicago restaurants, corporate event venues, hotels, conference centers, and private and party rooms to open next year. These new and renovated Chicago venues can accommodate groups large or small for private and corporate events, conferences, meetings, weddings, business dinners, teambuilding activities, cocktail parties, and more.
1. Chicago’s highly anticipated Virgin Hotel will open early next year. Located inside a 27-story Art Deco building, the downtown hotel will offer three event and meeting spaces: the Manor seats 108; the Sandbox seats 73; and the Founders Room hosts small dinners for 12. Other amenities include 250 rooms and suites, two restaurants, a rooftop bar and lounge, and a rooftop gym. A spa will open soon.
2. Revel Motor Row will open in a 1930s building—located directly across the street from McCormick Place—in 2015. The event space, operated by the Revel Group, will hold 2,500 guests for cocktail receptions or 1,000 for seated dinners. It will also offer a 7,000-square-foot courtyard and 12 to 20 spaces for breakout sessions and private dining.
3. Namco Entertainment will open a Pac-Man-theme restaurant and entertainment complex in Wood Dale early this year. Called Level 257, the 40,000-sqaure-foot venue will offer a game parlor, 16 bowling lanes, presentation rooms, and a banquet and event suite. The restaurant will seat 180 guests, and will feature bars, lounges, and fire pits.
4. Elaina Vazquez, owner of catering firm Boutique Bites, will open event space Brique in January. With a show kitchen, the Ada Street venue has a Hamptons-inspired vibe with capiz chandeliers, custom white floors, and a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf. At 8,000 square feet, the venue will seat 100 guests for dinners with a dance floor.
5. Morgan’s on Fulton is a new gallery, event space, and studio in the West Loop. A second-floor event space, set to open in spring 2015, will seat 90 guests or hold 120 standing. An underground event space that will open in January has a built-in bar and a DJ booth; it will hold 120 for receptions. An additional rooftop space will open in the spring. The first floor, which is now open, houses a 1,700-square-foot gallery with standing room for 95; it will seat 80 people classroom-style.
6. Gene & Georgetti's, a classic Chicago steakhouse, will expand to Rosemont in 2015. Yet to be named, the new space is a weddings and events facility with a classic design. There will also be a restaurant inspired by the original Gene & Georgetti's. Both the restaurant and the event space will take over the former Rosewood restaurant.
7. Dylan’s Candy Bar plans to open a Michigan Avenue location this spring. The two-floor, 13,000-square-foot candy store will have a café and bar area that can be rented out for corporate events, birthday parties, baby showers, and other functions. The menu offers candy-flavored cocktails and desserts.
8. Scheduled to open in early 2015, Loews Chicago Hotel will occupy a 52-story building one block north of the Chicago River. The hotel will offer 25,717 square feet of meeting and event space along with 400 guest rooms, a rooftop lounge, a restaurant, and an indoor lap pool.
9. DineAmic Group, the owners of Siena Tavern, will open Prime & Provisions in spring 2015. At the intersection of LaSalle Street and Wacker Drive, the 12,000-square-foot steakhouse will have two levels, 300 indoor seats, and 50 seats on a garden patio. The menu will focus on prime, Heritage Black Angus beef aged in the venue's dry-aging room.
10. Looking for a rustic venue? Slated to open in spring 2015, the Farm at Dover is in Kansasville, Wisconsin—about 75 miles north of Chicago. With seven acres of oak-tree-filled gardens, the venue has a remodeled historic barn that will seat 165 guests for dinner. For overnight guests, there’s also a four-bedroom Victorian home on site.
