Uptown’s Getting an All-Day Restaurant from Jam’s Owners

It’s been an exceptionally busy couple of months for the team behind popular Logan Square breakfast restaurant Jam. While they were packing up to move a half mile north, they were also hard at work concocting plans for a new restaurant. 3 Squares Diner will soon arrive inside Uptown’s historic Lawrence House.

First reported by the Tribune, the diner — the second restaurant for Jam owner Anthony Fiore’s investment group — is expected to open sometime in 2018 on the ground floor of the rehabbed apartment building at 1020 W. Lawrence Avenue.

The diner will serve updated comfort food dishes with fresh ingredients sourced from Midwestern farms for breakfast and lunch crowds, as well as dinner and late-night crowds — from three separate menus. Like a proper diner, breakfast will be served all day.

Chef Ian Voakes, also the head chef at Jam, is planning a menu full of simple comfort food, sometimes made with just three or four ingredients, handled with care. That means elevated twists on classics like burgers and boozy shakes, plus foodie dishes like duck confit pot pie, according to Voakes.

And for those North Siders who have been yearning for Jam breakfast closer to home, 3 Squares Diner will also serve some dishes directly from Jam’s menu, including its famous malted-custard french toast.

Prolific real estate developer Cedar Street Cos. spent about two years renovating Lawrence House, which opened as an upscale 344-unit apartment building last summer. 3 Squares Diner is taking over a ground-floor space that was originally home to a diner when the historic hotel opened in the 1920s. By keeping the 1920s-era tile flooring and incorporating swivel stools and the like, the Jam team hopes to give 3 Squares Diner an authentic feel, like it’s been there all along.

When it opens, 3 Squares Diner will share the ground floor with Larry’s, a cocktail bar that opened in January, and the Heritage Outpost coffee and bike shop.