‘I love everything here’: Moretti’s opens in Wheeling
If Thursday’s debut lunch crowd was any indication, the new Moretti’s restaurant in Wheeling is going to be a hit.
The first customers showed up 15 minutes before the wood-paneled eatery at 365 W. Dundee Road was scheduled to open. A dozen or so tables were occupied by noon.
“It’s great,” said Michael Abbate, the vice president of operations for the Chicago-area restaurant chain, which has locations in Schaumburg, Hoffman Estates and other suburbs.
The new restaurant occupies a prime location in the Wheeling Town Center complex. The 8,400-square-foot building’s prior occupant was a City Works restaurant that was shuttered in December 2023.
About nine months later, Moretti’s publicly announced plans to take over and renovate the space. And local buzz began to grow.
Coworkers Armi Jerger and Jack Caldez were the first customers Thursday. They weren’t about to miss the grand opening.
“I know Moretti’s. I was from Chicago,” said Jerger, who now lives in Wheeling. “I know the menu. I love everything here.”
Both Jerger and Caldez, of Villa Park, ordered the Thursday “Steak and Bake” special, a New York strip steak with a salad and a baked potato. Jerger said she’s also a fan of the grilled calamari and Italian beef sandwich.
Elsewhere in the dining room, Wheeling Township Elementary School District 21 board member Jessica Riddick sat at a four-top table with board President Debbi McAtee.
“We’re just excited to see a new business open up,” Riddick said as she waited for her French onion steak sandwich to arrive.
McAtee said she’d been looking forward to the restaurant opening.
“I think it’ll be very successful,” she said before ordering a Caesar salad and soup.
The Wheeling Town Center complex is a key part of the downtown district village officials have been trying to create on Dundee Road. As an incentive to take over the former City Works space, the village board last year awarded Moretti’s a $225,000 municipal grant last year to help cover construction costs. Village leaders also agreed not to build anything on two village-owned lots near the restaurant so it would remain visible to passersby.
Village President Pat Horcher called the restaurant’s much-anticipated opening “a big deal.”
“It’s another statement about how Wheeling is advancing,” Horcher said.