For thirty-plus years, if you told someone you were headed to downtown Aurora on a Saturday night, they assumed you meant the riverboat. That is no longer true. On June 24 the Hollywood Casino picked up and moved three and a half air miles northeast to Farnsworth and I-88, and the block it left behind is being handed back to the city for redevelopment. August is the first full month you can feel what that means on foot.
This is not a lament for the boat. It is a map of what is filling the vacuum, because a surprising amount of it is landing in the same eight-week window.
The 3.5-mile move that reshuffles a Saturday
The new Hollywood Casino Aurora at 2500 N. Farnsworth is a $360 million land-based resort with roughly 1,200 gaming positions, a 226-room hotel, a spa, and a 12,000-square-foot event center. The dining lineup is the part locals should care about even if you never touch a table game: Giada De Laurentiis's Sorella by Giada, Stephanie Izard's Lucky Goat, Antique Taco, Five50 Pizza, Pretty Cool Ice Cream, plus Urbanbelly and Tabo Sushi inside Boulevard Food & Drink Hall, the food hall from James Beard winner Shawn McClain's MCH group. Tabo Sushi is the return of Takashi Yagihashi's counter-service concept that used to live in Chicago's Wells Street Market.
What that pulls off Water Street: the crowd that used to drive downtown for one thing and leave. What it leaves behind: a walkable half-mile of independent operators who now get evaluated on their own terms.
What is actually open on Stolp Island and the surrounding blocks
The downtown restaurant list has quietly gotten interesting. A short, current inventory worth having on your phone:
- Arthouse, 5 E Galena Blvd. Elevated burger program with a monthly rotating burger and taco.
- Altiro Latin Fusion, 1 S Stolp Ave. Tapas and tacos, closed Mondays.
- Amore Mio, 33 W New York St. Chef Roberto Avila's Latin-Italian menu from the Altiro Group, dinner-only most nights.
- Giardino Trattoria & Pizzeria, on N River near Galena.
- Touche, French Creole, next door to the storefront that is about to become Kai.
- Kai Japanese Kitchen, 2 N River St. Signage is up and construction is ongoing in the former Leilani space. Owner Jay Punukollu is describing it as a modern Japanese kitchen with sushi rolls, sashimi, and ramen. Watch for an August or early-fall open.
- Vicolo, coming from Megan and Chris Curren's O&D Hospitality, the team behind St. Charles's The Graceful Ordinary. An all-day Italian café-and-restaurant slotting into one of the oldest buildings downtown, a space that has cycled through a cigar shop, a shoe store, and most recently an art gallery.
Two of those, Kai and Vicolo, are the tell. Independent operators do not sign leases on faith. They sign them when they have watched a market for a year and decided the foot traffic is going to hold.
RiverEdge in August: the calendar most residents underestimate
RiverEdge Park at 360 N Broadway holds 8,500 people and it will be close to full for most of the month. If you have been treating it as background noise, the August grid is a reason to reconsider.
| Date | Show |
|---|---|
| Sat Aug 8 | UB40 |
| Sun Aug 9 | UB40 |
| Thu Aug 13 | The Beach Boys |
| Fri Aug 14 | The Beach Boys |
| Sun Aug 16 | Totally Tubular Festival (A Flock of Seagulls, The Motels, Tommy Tutone, Animotion, The Producers, The Escape Club, Thomas Dolby) |
| Fri Aug 21 | Australian Pink Floyd Show |
| Sun Aug 23 | Third Eye Blind |
| Fri Aug 28 | Sixteen Candles (rescheduled from 7/17) |
| Thu Sep 10 | Cheap Trick |
Totally Tubular is the one to plan around if you live within walking distance: gates open at 5 PM, tickets start at $45 in person, and the lineup runs seven acts deep. Bag chairs are allowed on the designated cement pads and blankets on the grass, which is why locals who know the venue arrive early with a chair rather than pay for reserved seats.
Saturday morning is still the anchor
The Aurora Farmers Market at 65 Water Street is the oldest in Illinois, running its 115th season this year. That is not a marketing line. The market was established in 1912. It runs Saturdays from 8 AM to noon through October 3, with roughly 60 vendors weekly, and market manager Felicia Freitag has flagged first-year additions worth trying: Microcosm Farm for produce and sauerkrauts, Rainbow Flock n' Farm for eggs and poultry, and Avocado Theory for a customizable guacamole bar. Dick's Mini Donuts remains the line you should get in first, not last.
The West Side companion market runs Wednesdays 10 AM to 2 PM at 1999 W. Galena Blvd through September 2, which is useful if your Saturdays are booked with concerts.
Here is the thing about a 115-year-old market on a block that is about to lose its casino: it becomes the reason the block still fills up on Saturday morning. It was always the reason for people who cared about the market. Now it is the reason, full stop.
The riverboat lot is the story to watch
The old Hollywood Casino site, which had been on the Fox River since 1993, will be torn down and turned over to the city for redevelopment. That is a downtown parcel with river frontage, walking distance to the Paramount, RiverEdge, the farmers market, and Stolp Island. Whatever goes there will define the next decade of downtown. The redevelopment agreement includes a tax-increment financing district on the casino move itself, with the increased property taxes from the new Farnsworth site helping to fund the demolition and bonds tied to the deal.
For a resident, the practical read is simple: the parking pattern around Water Street is going to change, and the sightlines from Stolp Island toward the river are about to open up in ways they have not in three decades.
A weekend-by-weekend read for the rest of the month
| Weekend | The move |
|---|---|
| Aug 8-9 | Farmers Market Saturday morning, UB40 both nights at RiverEdge. Park once, walk. |
| Aug 13-15 | Beach Boys back-to-back Thursday and Friday. Reserve a Vicolo or Amore Mio table if you can, or grab an Arthouse burger before the gates. |
| Aug 16 | Totally Tubular. Bring a chair, get there by 5. |
| Aug 21-23 | Australian Pink Floyd Friday, Third Eye Blind Sunday. Saturday belongs to the market and whichever downtown restaurant you have been putting off. |
| Aug 28-30 | Sixteen Candles Friday, last Saturday of August at the market. |
Why this all matters if you actually live here
Aurora has been an easy town to live in and a hard town to sell to outsiders, because the pitch was always about what was coming rather than what was here. That reversed this summer. The casino leaving downtown was framed as a loss in some early coverage, and it is not. It is the removal of the single largest reason to drive into downtown and leave without walking anywhere. What replaces that pattern is more foot traffic on Water Street, more evenings at RiverEdge, more independent restaurants signing leases on Stolp Island, and a river-frontage redevelopment parcel that will be one of the more interesting municipal decisions in DuPage and Kane County over the next few years.
The current resident's move for August is straightforward. Pick two RiverEdge shows. Book one dinner at a restaurant you have not tried yet. Show up at the market before 9 AM at least once. And keep an eye on the riverboat site, because what the city does with that lot is going to shape the answer to the question "should we stay in Aurora or move" for a lot of households within a two-mile radius.
If you are weighing that question, or thinking about how downtown's shift affects the value of a home you already own here, Alexa Wagner at AMW Real Estate tracks these blocks the way locals track the RiverEdge calendar. Let's Connect.
The new Hollywood Casino Aurora officially opened on June 24, 2026, replacing the former Fox River riverboat location that had served guests since the early 1990s. The land-based casino is about 3.5 air miles northeast of the riverboat, near the Chicago Premium Outlets and Interstate 88. The best-in-class facility will feature roughly 1,200 gaming positions, approximately 220 guest rooms, a retail sportsbook, outdoor entertainment area, full-service spa, high-quality bars and restaurants including Sorella by Giada and Boulevard Food & Drink Hall, an approximately 12,000 square foot event center with meeting areas and approximately 1,700 parking spaces.
