Drive past 18155 Dixie Highway this summer and you'll see fresh permits in the window where a padlocked storefront sat for years. Walk another lot down and the old Repeat Boutique building, empty since 2024, has a "bids due" notice taped inside the glass instead of a for-sale sign. Neither of those buildings changed hands because a private investor spotted an opportunity. The Village of Homewood owned them first.
That's the part of this summer's restaurant news that gets skipped over when people just list what's new. Multiple food businesses are either open or on the way within a few blocks of each other on Dixie Highway, and at least two of those deals only exist because the village itself bought the dirt, cleared the back taxes, and picked the buyer. Understanding that changes how you read the corridor. This isn't a neighborhood organically discovering it likes Mediterranean food. It's a municipal strategy with a menu attached.
The Village Became a Landlord on Dixie Highway
Start with 18155 Dixie Highway, the address Munir Bawadi is turning into a Mediterranean restaurant. According to Homewood's economic and community development director, Angela Mesaros, the village purchased the building in October 2024 after it had sat empty for years and accumulated unpaid property taxes. It stayed vacant until Homewood struck a deal with Bawadi in the fall of 2025, and that agreement included a requirement for the village to support a Class 8 tax designation. The property officially became Bawadi's on February 12, and the village board formally approved the tax incentive twelve days later, at its February 24 meeting.
The Class 8 designation isn't a routine rubber stamp. The Cook County Class 8 program is meant to encourage commercial reinvestment in areas struggling with high property tax burdens, and qualifying properties get a reduced assessment level for 10 years, with the option to renew. Homewood didn't just find a tenant for a dead building. It used a county-level tax tool to make the deal pencil out for someone who'd otherwise have walked past that storefront.
Then, this spring, the village did it again a few doors down. In May, Homewood bought the former Repeat Boutique space at 18157 Dixie Highway for $100,000 from Grand Prairie Services Integrated Health. The building has been vacant since 2024 and requires significant interior rehabilitation, according to Noah Schumerth, the village's director of economic and community development. On June 23, the board approved an ordinance to start soliciting bids to sell it off for redevelopment. Schumerth was direct about why the village keeps doing this: the property was acquired as part of a broader effort to encourage commercial redevelopment in the downtown area, sitting within the village's B-2 Downtown Transition zoning district and near several other redevelopment projects, including Homewood Brewing Company, Bawadi's restaurant project and the planned Tequila Raizes restaurant.
That's three restaurant projects the village named in a single sentence about one vacant storefront. Bids for the Repeat Boutique building were due at noon on July 24 and opened at the board's July 28 meeting, so by the time you read this, Homewood likely already knows who's taking that space next.
What Actually Shows Up When You Walk the Block
The anchor of all this is Homewood Brewing Company at 18225 Dixie Highway, and it's worth knowing the building's backstory if you've only ever known it as HBC. HBC broke ground in 2023 in a space formerly home to Bogart's and opened in 2024 as a space for food, beer, and community gatherings. The brewery carries a personal story most regulars don't know: it was founded by Carmela Wallace, mother of the late Jarad Higgins, known to the world as Juice WRLD, who lived with him in Homewood, and she sees HBC as both a tribute to her son and a way to give back to the community she loves. Wallace's Live Free 999 Foundation, created in her son's memory, supports mental health work, which gives the brewery a weight beyond its beer list.
Bawadi's restaurant hasn't opened yet, but the Class 8 paperwork tells you the village expects it to be a real commercial anchor, not a placeholder. Tequila Raizes is still in the "planned" column as of Homewood's own public statements, so treat that one as a name to watch rather than a reservation to make.
A short drive away, at 18755 Dixie Highway, a different kind of deal produced a different kind of restaurant. Antoine Washington purchased the former Cilantro Cocina Mexicana property and plans to open a 3B Burger-Bird-Brews House there, a burger, chicken, and beer concept he built from scratch. The village board approved his liquor license at its March 24 meeting, and unlike the Bawadi and Repeat Boutique deals, this was a straightforward private purchase, no village ownership involved. Washington already owns 20 other restaurants across the southwest suburbs, and he told the board this is a new brand he just created, with plans to franchise it, and another location already going up in Posen. Village Trustee Lauren Roman welcomed the news plainly: "I'm excited to see that restaurant space get revived and come back to life."
Then there's the restaurant that owes nothing to any of this. On Maple Avenue, not Dixie Highway, 22-year-old Sultan Frehat opened Fill-A-Pita Mediterranean Grill with a grand opening celebration on July 17, offering free food from noon to 5 p.m. so residents could sample the menu. Frehat's path to ownership started at Moraine Valley Community College, and his opening had no tax incentive, no village-owned building, no board vote. It's the same summer, the same downtown, and a completely different mechanism: one young owner with a lease, not a municipal redevelopment file.
Put those two stories side by side and the shape of the corridor gets clearer. Dixie Highway is growing because Homewood is actively buying and reselling the real estate to make it happen. Maple Avenue is growing because someone with a good idea found a landlord willing to sign a lease. Both are real. Only one of them was engineered.
Your Saturday Just Got Longer
None of this happens in a vacuum from the other reason downtown Homewood gets busy on weekends. The 2026 Outdoor Farmers Market season kicked off Saturday, May 30, and runs every Saturday through October 10 (except July 4) from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Martin Square. This isn't a new tradition finding its footing. The market is now in its more than 40-year history and continues to serve as a cornerstone of the community. What's different this year is the footprint: on select Saturdays, the market expands to more than 50 vendors and extends onto Chestnut Road, which puts it within easy walking distance of both the Dixie Highway restaurant stretch and the Maple Avenue side of downtown.
The market itself has layers worth knowing about if you've only ever grabbed produce and left. The Homewood Hunt & Gather Market, a vintage style and handmade market, pops up inside the Farmers Market every Saturday of the month from May through October, 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., and shoppers can expect old shutters, vintage windows, hand crafted jewelry, painted furniture, candles, and antiques alongside the produce stands. The Homewood Historical Society also hands out free local recipes at the market, a small detail that fits a town that just spent a year negotiating tax incentives to keep its downtown occupied rather than watching buildings sit empty.
Events Manager Marla Youngblood summed up the expansion plainly: "The Homewood Farmers Market has been a beloved tradition for generations, and we're excited to build on that legacy with an expanded footprint and even more to offer our residents and visitors." The one Saturday to build around your calendar is July 4, when there's no market at all. Homewood skips the market that day for the 4th of July parade on Ridge Road, which steps off at 10 a.m.
The Corridor Isn't Finished
The Repeat Boutique building is still an open question. Bids closed July 24 and the board reviewed them July 28, which means the next tenant for that Dixie Highway gap should surface soon, most likely through the village's own announcements. The village has said redevelopment there could mean added sales tax or dining tax revenue if the site goes commercial, but it hasn't committed to a restaurant specifically. Village Manager Napoleon Haney has been blunt about the pace of interest downtown, calling Homewood "hot for development right now" when describing a separate set of proposals for the village hall parking lot a few blocks over. Whatever business lands at 18157 Dixie Highway will be the next piece of a corridor the village has been building on purpose, one tax incentive and one property purchase at a time.
If you live in Homewood, none of this requires you to do anything. It just means the next time you notice a new sign going up between the brewery and the burger spot, you'll know it probably didn't get there by accident. Someone at village hall picked that tenant.
If you're the kind of person who likes knowing why a downtown looks the way it does, and you ever find yourself wondering what that means for property values or timing on the block you actually live on, that's the kind of conversation Christina Horne has with south-suburban homeowners every week. No pressure to make it about real estate today. Go get a pita and a beer first.
