Blackberry Market expansion delivers huge win for Glen Ellyn

Blackberry Market is getting an upgrade, and killing two birds with one stone by making use of one of the vacant retail spaces along Main Street. The southern stretch of Main in downtown Glen Ellyn has seen a slow, painful exodus of businesses, the two largest spaces being Giesche Shoe Store, and most recently Soukup’s Hardware. One of these abandoned buildings formerly occupied by Riveria Jewelers is about to be put to use by Blackberry, as they take over the adjacent building at 409 N. Main to expand their bakery and add seating, along with a few additional upgrades.

Blackberry Market opened in December 2012, and in less than five years quickly established itself as a go-to destination for those who love to relax for a while with fresh coffee, a cinnamon roll, or perhaps the best chicken salad ever created. Seemingly anything on the menu is a good choice, whether it’s breakfast, lunch, or one of their limited dinners to-go, offered Monday-Thursday. (If you’d like to reserve a dinner to-go, click here.)

From mySuburbanLife.com:

“Right now, our bakery team has been sharing space with our current kitchen and with some of our front-of-house counter space,” Blackberry Market chef and owner Anna Davidson said. “We’re putting in a dedicated bakery so that they have their own space, and we can have more staff and more space to make more product.”

“More product” from the bakery is music to the ears of all Glen Ellyn residents, and we will get to find out what this new product entails as early as this October, which is when the expansion is estimated to be complete.

“We want to add an area to put in some taps,” Davidson said. “We’re hoping to do some nitro and iced coffee. We already serve beer and wine, but we’re going to expand that menu and do some cocktails.”

Additional bakery items, new coffee options, and the introduction of cocktails to the menu? Sounds like a huge win for BBM and Glen Ellyn. The fact that this expansion will also put to use an abandoned retail space is the melt-in-your-mouth icing on the cinnamon roll. The good news continued for Blackberry as Glen Ellyn will also be handing over a $15,000 Façade Improvement Award, as well as a $15,000 Downtown Retail Interior Improvement Award. Well deserved, and wisely approved by a Glen Ellyn Board that must be overjoyed seeing a former blight of the downtown scene be transformed into a bigger, better Blackberry Market.