Nov. 11, 2025

Windy City Bites is returning full time to its food truck roots.

Owners DaShawn and Samantha Lewis are closing their brick-and-mortar location this week, seeking the flexibility for their family that the food truck and catering provide, they said.

The final hours for their restaurant and bar at 114 N. Indiana Ave. are 4 to 9 p.m. today and Wednesday.

The couple also will host a free Thanksgiving dinner for the community starting at 5 p.m. Nov. 22 at the restaurant. The second annual event will go until the food is gone.

The restaurant, which opened in 2022, had been closed for several months this summer while the food truck continued to operate. The couple had their fourth child in the spring and were getting ready to send their oldest off to college in South Carolina. They reopened in October but decided not to renew their lease, noting their the desire to prioritize their family, along with staffing issues and the expenses of a brick-and-mortar location.

The Windy City Bites food truck, which the Chicago natives opened in 2020, will be based in the parking lot next to Gift & Thrift at 10th Street and Bahnson Avenue. The Lewises hope to open the food truck as the weather allows this winter, hoping to have at the minimum a consistent schedule of evening hours on Mondays and Tuesdays after the holidays and returning to regular hours in the spring.

They’ll post updates on their Facebook page.

“Everything that we served in the bar will be on the truck,” DaShawn Lewis said. “We’ll be doing chef’s specials on the weekends.”

The Windy City Bites menu features Chicago-style dogs, Italian beef and chopped Philly sandwiches, burgers, Polish and Italian sausages, wings, jerk chicken tacos, rib tips and fried catfish.

“We appreciate all the time and support from people that came up and supported us, and we’re looking forward to seeing them at the food truck,” Lewis said.