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A server delivers meals for diners at The Roanoke restaurant in Chicago, Oct. 21, 2025. (Antonio Perez\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\nWith all eyes on the U.S. Supreme Court as it weighs whether or not the Trump administration can deploy the National Guard to Illinois, Loop business owners worry a bigger federal presence could scare off their customers and workers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not seeing troops marching down Wacker Drive yet, but I do feel there is an increasing sense of anxiety,\u201d said Donna Lee, founder of Brown Bag Seafood Co., which operates seven Chicago restaurants.<\/p>\n
Other downtown restaurants have already seen lower foot traffic and staff not showing up to work, said Brad Alaoui, chief operating officer of Roanoke Hospitality, which runs five restaurants in River North and the Loop, including The Roanoke at 135 W. Madison St.<\/p>\n
A server delivers meals for diners at The Roanoke restaurant in Chicago, Oct. 21, 2025. (Antonio Perez\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had a lot of staff call off,\u201d he said. Restaurants are already more vulnerable because beef and produce prices are rising, \u201cand as restaurant operators our costs will go up further without enough workers. That adds more pressure and uncertainty.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chicago business leaders said a protracted occupation will further damage the city\u2019s economy, and pointed to conditions in Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles, where troop deployments and crackdowns on immigrants lacking permanent legal status launched by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security have tamped down everything from tourism and restaurant traffic to retail sales.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just creates fear, chaos and then that\u2019s going to hurt local businesses,\u201d said Jack Lavin, president and CEO of the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce.<\/p>\n
So far, downtown restaurants and other retailers haven\u2019t felt much pain from Operation Midway Blitz, the campaign announced by DHS in early September. Few reported large declines in sales or foot traffic, but agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol have been much more active in heavily Latino neighborhoods such as Little Village on Chicago\u2019s Southwest Side, and haven\u2019t been very visible downtown since Sept. 28.<\/p>\n
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Brad Alaoui, chief operating officer of Roanoke Hospitality, at The Roanoke restaurant in Chicago, Oct. 21, 2025. (Antonio Perez\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n
Downtown business owners want to avoid what\u2019s happened along 26th Street in Little Village, where immigration raids have left many restaurant workers too afraid to show up for work and customers nervous about eating out, said Sam Toia, president of the Illinois Restaurant Association.<\/p>\n
\u201cFolks are not going to work,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve heard from some of our members (in Little Village) that they don\u2019t have enough help coming in. They are just very cautious about ICE agents.\u201d<\/p>\n
The federal crackdown began in June, first in Los Angeles. Then in August, President Donald Trump deployed both National Guard troops and DHS personnel to Washington, D.C., claiming they were needed to combat crime.<\/p>\n
Restaurants in the nation\u2019s capital were hit hard, Toia said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve heard from our counterparts in D.C., where they saw some restaurants go down 30% in sales,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, this is definitely creating fear among Chicago diners and restaurants. The fear would go up even more if the National Guard was put in place.\u201d<\/p>\n
More than seventy percent of Washington D.C. restaurants surveyed reported a significant decline in sales and foot traffic in the last two weeks of August, said Shawn Townsend, president of Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington.<\/p>\n
Townsend said National Guard troops mostly walked around near major tourist attractions and federal properties downtown. Washington, D.C. residents are accustomed to a heavy police presence near the city\u2019s monuments, but in other neighborhoods, aggressive DHS actions scared off many restaurant employees, making it difficult for some businesses to operate.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know immigrants are the backbone of our industry here,\u201d Townsend said. \u201cWithout them, our industry does not survive.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is definitely a chill in the air, with fewer people on the streets, and businesses, especially restaurants, are feeling the crunch for sure,\u201d said Diane Gross, the owner of Cork Wine Bar & Market, a restaurant in the Logan Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n
Larger, full-service restaurants that do a lot of prep work are especially dependent on immigrants, she added, and ICE raids \u201care creating a lot of fear in our neighborhoods, especially the neighborhoods where (restaurant) employees live. Other restaurants had a lot of people not show up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even restaurants like Cork Wine Bar & Market, which doesn\u2019t rely on immigrant labor, have suffered. Gross estimates she saw a 30% decline in sales during the first two weeks of September.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been pretty dramatic,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Trump announced plans on Oct. 4 to deploy hundreds of National Guard troops to the Chicago region, but was temporarily blocked by a federal judge after the city and state filed a lawsuit. The Trump administration filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court.<\/p>\n
Deploying troops without the approval of Gov. JB Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson is not the way to fight crime, according to Derek Douglas, president of the Civic Committee and the Commercial Club of Chicago.<\/p>\n
\u201cSending in troops, independent, disconnected, uncoordinated from what all the rest of us in Chicago are doing on the ground is not helpful,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s not the type of intervention that we want to see.\u201d<\/p>\n
There are some signs a heavy federal presence could hurt Chicago\u2019s downtown.<\/p>\n