Walk past 180 N. Smith Street on a Wednesday at midnight this fall and Durty Nellie's is still doing business. Fifty-four years into its run as downtown Palatine's answer to a music venue, the doors don't close until 10 p.m. on Mondays, midnight on Tuesdays, 1 a.m. on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and 2 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. That schedule is one of the last things about the building that will look the same by next summer.
The Daily Herald reported that on September 8, 2026, the Palatine Village Council approved a plan to sell the building to Big Grove Brewery, an Iowa-based brewery chain making its first move into Illinois. The headline version of this story is simple: a beloved bar closes, a brewery moves in. But the version worth knowing if you live within walking distance of Brockway or Smith Street is more specific than that, and it has less to do with what disappears than with when.
The building that didn't come down this time
Three years ago, this same address was headed toward a very different fate. In 2023, Durty Nellie's owners Mark and Jim Dolezal proposed demolishing the building entirely and replacing it with a six-story, 85-unit apartment complex, with a smaller, 3,500-square-foot version of the pub tucked into the ground floor. Architect Jim Tinaglia drew up the plans. Developer Jonathan Payne, who also worked on The Arboretum in South Barrington, was on the team. The council approved it. Demolition was supposed to start in early 2024, with construction running 18 months to two years.
None of that happened. As of this fall, 180 N. Smith Street is still the same building Durty Nellie's built in 2003, and it's that building, not an empty lot, that Big Grove has under contract to buy. The new plan, drawn up by Pappageorge Haymes Partners, calls for gutting the first floor and tearing out the stage to make room for a brewhouse, while the second floor becomes private event space for weddings and corporate gatherings. It's a renovation, not a teardown.
That distinction matters for anyone who's watched Palatine's downtown fill back in over the past few years the same way. Pizza Bella didn't build new when it expanded into a sit-down restaurant. It moved into the century-old former Zimmer Hardware building at 16 N. Brockway, exposed the original brick, and kept a vintage rotary phone in the corner as a nod to the space's history. Downtown Palatine's pattern lately isn't demolition. It's old buildings getting new tenants inside the same four walls.
What Big Grove actually changes
The Village Council's approval came with real financial backing: up to $1.75 million in tax increment financing to reimburse the new owners for remodeling and acquisition costs, plus another $100,000 toward relocating the building's entrance off Smith Street. The village's liquor commission also approved a license for the new operator, though it won't be issued until the restaurant is actually ready to open. Big Grove's Chief Operating Officer, Mike Wehr, told the council he hopes to open by next summer.
What's coming isn't a scaled-down version of the old venue. When a commissioner asked whether live music would continue, The Daily Herald reported Wehr's answer:
"Ninety-six percent of our business happens before 10 o'clock, and so we are not a late-night place."
That single sentence is the most useful piece of information in this whole transition, more useful than the square footage or the TIF total, because it tells you exactly what changes on the block once Big Grove opens. Here's the comparison that makes it concrete:
| Day | Durty Nellie's (current) | Big Grove Brewery (planned) |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | 3 p.m. – 10 p.m. | 11 a.m. – 10 p.m. |
| Tuesday | 3 p.m. – midnight | 11 a.m. – 10 p.m. |
| Wednesday | 11 a.m. – 1 a.m. | 11 a.m. – 10 p.m. |
| Thursday | 11 a.m. – 1 a.m. | 11 a.m. – 10 p.m. |
| Friday | 11 a.m. – 2 a.m. | 11 a.m. – 11 p.m. |
| Saturday | 11 a.m. – 2 a.m. | 11 a.m. – 11 p.m. |
| Sunday | 11 a.m. – 8 p.m. | 11 a.m. – 11 p.m. |
The gap is widest on the nights Nellie's has always been busiest. Downtown Palatine isn't losing a building. It's losing three hours per night of late-night business from Wednesday through Saturday, the exact window that used to belong to whoever was still on stage. Big Grove will brew five to seven rotating taplines on-site, aiming for 200 to 300 barrels a year, and keep core beers like Easy Eddy and Citrus Surfer on tap alongside them. Wehr said other Big Grove locations have hosted live music at a smaller scale, but nothing on the schedule points to anything resembling a full concert calendar.
What doesn't skip a Saturday
Not everything tied to this address is on pause while the sale moves through. Vintage in the Burbs, the rotating vintage market that sets up in Durty Nellie's own front parking lot with the beer garden running alongside it, has kept its full third-Saturday schedule all year. This year's run had two more dates on the books after mid-August, and by the time you're reading this, only one is left: October 17. Whatever happens to the building over the winter, that market and its vendors have operated independently of the ownership change so far, and nothing in the village's approval touches the parking lot itself.
The rest of the dinner map isn't waiting either
The pause at 180 N. Smith Street hasn't put a pause on the rest of downtown. Within a few blocks you've still got Tap House Grill on Wilson Street, Emmett's Brewing Co. on Brockway, Gianni's Café on Station Street, The Cork @ CCF's wine list, and Madcats' regular crowd, all operating on their normal schedules through the transition. Pizza Bella, since reopening in the old Zimmer Hardware building in 2024, has settled in as one of downtown's steadier dinner spots, family tables up front and sports on the TVs in back. None of that changes because one building down the block is getting gutted for a brewhouse.
What this actually means for a Friday night
Downtown Palatine's Metra station is the fourth-busiest of Metra's 236 non-downtown stops, moving an average of 1,610 weekday boardings as of 2025. That's a lot of people getting off a train and deciding, right there on the platform, whether to walk toward dinner or walk home. For years, Durty Nellie's was the answer for anyone who wanted that decision to stretch past 10 p.m. Once Big Grove opens, that particular answer goes away, not because the block empties out, but because everything on it now closes at a reasonable hour.
If you're the person who's caught a dozen shows in that room over the years, this fall and winter are what's left of that version of downtown. If you're the person who just wants a beer and dinner with an earlier bedtime, next summer brings you an anchor tenant built for exactly that. Either way, the building at 180 N. Smith Street isn't going anywhere. What's leaving is a closing time.
If you already call this stretch of Palatine home and you're curious what all this downtown momentum, new ownership, renovated buildings, a dining scene that keeps filling in, has done to your own home's value, C Starr Team can put together a free, no-obligation valuation any time you're ready to look.
