‘Right time and a great fit’: After 16 years, Nirvana Wine & Grillerie expanding in a new location

Nirvana Wine & Grillerie, a scratch kitchen that opened in 2008 in a strip center in Vernon Hills, will be moving and expanding to the new Hawthorn Row.

“I chose Hawthorn Row because it was the right opportunity at the right time and a great fit for us,” said Danny Caldwell, who acquired the business in 2014. “I have been trying to move Nirvana for years, which is very difficult to do.”

Nirvana is a full-service restaurant serving lunch and dinner, hosting group events and featuring a wine shop and wine club. More than 90% of what is served is never frozen with offerings including hand-cut meats, homemade stocks, soups and breads, said Caldwell adding, the restaurant is committed to sourcing the best and most environmentally sustainable ingredients and wines.

Wine is sourced from family-owned and small production wineries and about 50 wines by the glass are available. The restaurant is closed about five times a year for six varietal wine tasting and three-course chef featured pairing hosted by a winemaker.

Located in storefront space in the River Tree Court shopping center, the restaurant is diagonally across the busy intersection of Milwaukee Avenue and Route 60 from Hawthorn shopping center, which has been undergoing a transformation.

That includes Hawthorn Row, a new Main Street-style feature flanked by 313 luxury apartments and various shops on the footprint of the former Sears anchor store.

“We are going to increase our visibility and foot traffic exponentially,” he said. “The goal is to link what has made Nirvana great while elevating it for the future.”

A name change to Nirvana Kitchen & Wine Bar will come with the move intended to reflect what the business has become in its 16-plus year history.

The new location will be 2,563 square feet and have 50% more indoor seating while remaining intimate, Caldwell said.

A private dining room will be able to host one or two events for about 50 people simultaneously. The bar will be bigger, more secluded from the dining room and have more of a “bar atmosphere,” Caldwell said.

A key feature of the seven-figure build out is a four-season indoor/outdoor heated and screened patio that will be open most of they year. That effectively will double the 56 seats indoors when in use and allow the restaurant to be open seven days for lunch, dinner and brunch on weekends.

Nirvana will be located on the west end of Hawthorn Row and is considered an extension of the outdoor green space immediately to the west.

Nirvana and Centennial Real Estate, the owner operator of the Hawthorn mall property applied for an outdoor dining and seating establishment. The roof is planned to project more than allowed by storefront design standards approved for Hawthorn Row and is opaque rather than clear, requiring village board approval.

It will provide “an enhanced opportunity for an outdoor dining experience at Hawthorn Row,” Sam Whitebread, vice president of development for shopping center owner Dallas-based Centennial Real Estate, recently told the village board.

He said vision for “modest sidewalk cafés” originally contemplated for Hawthorn Row has evolved.

“We’ve identified areas such as this specifically where there’s a great opportunity for maybe a more robust outdoor dining experience,” he said. “Instead of tables, chairs and umbrellas, we would have maybe a roof structure that would still allow for some seasonal outdoor dining,” he said.

Caldwell said the menu also will be updated and expanded while continuing to keep everything fresh and made in house. A March opening is planned.

“We are really excited to … keep Nirvana a great choice for special occasions and make it much more of an every day place,” he said.