New Restaurant Leads: Chicago Restaurants About to Open

Find Chicago restaurants, cafes, groceries and bakeries before they open. Each one has just had its pre-opening license inspection. About 2¢ a lead.

Before a Chicago food business can open, the Chicago Department of Public Health inspects the site for its new license. The Actor pulls those license inspections (about 200 a month, roughly 85 of them restaurants). Routine canvass, complaint and food-poisoning inspections are excluded. Each lead has the business name, street address, ZIP, facility type, risk level, inspection date and result (Pass, Pass w/ Conditions, Fail, Not Ready). Each license is returned once, so a failed first visit and its re-inspection don't count as two leads.

👉 Try it free: new Apify accounts get $5 of free platform credit every month, enough for hundreds of leads.

Real sample leads (pulled October 2026)

Business	Type	Address	ZIP	Result	Inspected
Fuerza Vital	Restaurant	8542 S Pulaski Rd	60652	Pass	2026-10-09
La Quinta Inn and Suites Chicago Downtown	Restaurant	1 S Franklin St	60606	Pass	2026-10-08
Cilantro Taco Grill - Loop	Restaurant	180 N Wells St	60606	Pass	2026-10-08
A Ma Maniere	Restaurant	1144 W Washington Blvd	60607	Fail	2026-10-08
Insomnia Cookies	Restaurant	225 S Canal St	60606	Pass	2026-10-08

ROI: 1,000 about-to-open Chicago food businesses cost $20. One POS install, linen contract or distributor account pays for that many times over.

Who uses it

POS & payments resellers · food & beverage distributors · restaurant equipment, linen, grease & pest control · commercial insurance · staffing & payroll · delivery platforms, reservation & restaurant SaaS · local marketing, signage and web agencies.

Filters

• Facility types: Restaurant (default), Grocery Store, Bakery, Mobile Food Preparer, Catering, Tavern. Only food-service facilities are returned; daycares, schools, care homes and other non-food sites are always excluded
• Results: Pass, Pass w/ Conditions, Fail, Not Ready. Pass usually means the place opens within days. A Fail or Not Ready means it's still in build-out, which is the best time to sell equipment and services.
• Business name keywords (Pizza, Taco, Cafe)
• ZIP codes
• Include license re-inspections (on by default)
• Inspection date range

Set it up as a daily lead feed

1. Set your filters (or leave them empty for everything).
2. Keep Only new since last run on. Each run returns only leads you haven't seen.
3. Click Schedule → Daily, then connect Google Sheets, HubSpot, Salesforce, Slack, Zapier or Make so fresh leads land in your tools automatically.

Runs with nothing new cost almost nothing, because you only pay for the leads you get.

Input

{"facilityTypes": ["Restaurant"], "results": ["Pass", "Pass w/ Conditions"], "zips": ["60614", "60622", "60647"], "dateFrom": "30 days", "onlyNew": true}

Output fields

licenseNumber, inspectionId, businessName, akaName, facilityType, riskLevel, address, city, state, zip, inspectionType, result, inspectionDate, latitude, longitude, source. Export as CSV, Excel or JSON, or pull it through the API.

Pricing

Pay per result: $0.02 per lead ($20 per 1,000). No subscription.

FAQ

Where does the data come from? The "Food Inspections" dataset on data.cityofchicago.org, published by the City of Chicago and updated daily. Why license inspections? The city inspects every new food license (new business, new location or new owner) before the license is issued. That makes these inspections the earliest public signal that a restaurant is about to open. Does it include phone numbers or emails? The source doesn't publish them. Enrich with your usual tool. How do I avoid duplicates? Keep "Only new since last run" on, and use a different dedupe store name for each separate feed.

Need another city? Request it in the Issues tab. LeadSignal adds new feeds regularly.

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Last updated: October 14, 2026 · Built by LeadSignal: public-record lead feeds for B2B sales. Not affiliated with the City of Chicago or the Chicago Department of Public Health.