What’s in store for Lisle’s French market; food trucks to roll into downtown

Lisle trustees next month will consider a revised agreement with the organizer of the village’s French market that will keep it in town through October 2027.

Bensidoun USA, the operator of more sprawling markets in downtown Wheaton and Geneva, has proposed moving Lisle’s to a commuter parking lot along Burlington Avenue to accommodate a larger market for the 2026 season and beyond. The lot could support as many as 36 to 40 vendors.

Bensidoun plans to continue operating the market at its current site on Garfield Avenue, just east of Prairie Walk Pond, for this upcoming season.

In addition, the village and Bensidoun plan to roll out a new downtown event — food truck markets — in June in Commuter Lot B. The lot is being resurfaced this summer sometime after June, when the new food truck markets will be over.

Trustees this week were slated to vote on a proposed amendment to the village’s French market license agreement with Bensidoun and a supplemental food truck market license as part of the board’s routine consent agenda. Instead, trustees spelled out changes to several provisions as written.

According to village documents, village staff consulted with Bensidoun on those changes, and the operator has agreed to them. The revised agreements are expected to go back to the village board on March 3.

A draft amendment to the French market agreement had previously called for a longer term through October 2030.

“I'm not sure that commuter parking remains the highest and best use for lot B,” Trustee Michael Olson said. “A five-year extension of the agreement, I find that to be problematic as well.”

Olson said he would be supportive of as long as a three-year extension of the agreement, “which would be coterminous” with the proposed food truck timeline.

The initial food truck market is expected to run weekly during June. Those dates were selected to avoid competing with the park district's July concert series, which also features food trucks, Village Manager Eric Ertmoed explained.

“If it's successful, we could add a few dates in September before the cool weather sets in,” he said.

The initial term of the food truck market agreement would run from June through May 2026 and automatically renew for two additional one-year terms, unless either the village or Bensidoun gives enough written notice of nonrenewal.

Of concern was a provision stating that should the village decide not to renew at the end of the agreement, the village would also guarantee that it would not allow a food truck market in the “licensed premises” during the following calendar year. Trustees also directed village staff to remove that language.

“I struggle with why we would be told how we can program our own lot, particularly if it wasn't working, and we think either a different provider or the village itself could do a better job,” Olson said.

Other trustees noted the village has restarted a grant program for special events.

If “somebody would come with an application and say, ‘Hey, we'd like to have a special event here,’ and it's six months away from where the other event is only being held for a month — that's a problem,” Trustee Dan Grecco said.

Bensidoun would pay the village an annual $900 fee to operate the food truck market.