The Hollywood casinos in Joliet and Aurora, which are both building new land-based facilities, are bringing in some star power for their planned restaurants.
Celebrity chef Giada De Laurentiis has partnered with Hollywood parent company Penn Entertainment to launch two Italian restaurants at the suburban Chicago sister casinos.
Sorella by Giada, a 170-seat restaurant featuring De Laurentiis’ “signature fusion of classic Italian cuisine and modern California influence,” is expected to open at Hollywood Casino Aurora in the first half of 2026.
The more casual Sorellina at Hollywood Casino Joliet is slated to open in the fourth quarter of this year. Both restaurants are pending completion of their respective developments and regulatory approval by the Illinois Gaming Board.
“The two spaces are complementary but ultimately offer different aesthetics,” De Laurentiis said in a news release. “Joliet’s Sorellina, meaning ‘little sister’ in Italian, will be light, young and casual. Aurora’s Sorella, meaning ‘sister’ in Italian, is more formal and refined.”
The restaurants will offer menus built around pizza and pasta, contemporary design and the imprimatur of De Laurentiis, a celebrity chef well known to viewers for hosting a series of shows on the Food Network cable channel. She has also written several cookbooks.
De Laurentiis owns and operates two restaurants in Las Vegas and one in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Penn Entertainment hopes De Laurentiis and the new land-based facilities will be a catalyst for the suburban Chicago casinos — once both riverboats — to grab a bigger slice of the state’s expanding casino industry, which generated $1.69 billion in adjusted gross receipts last year, according to the Gaming Board.
“Just having Giada as a partner, she has fans that are going to come and see her outlet and taste the food and the recipes that she’s created for us,” Jaime Williams, regional vice president of marketing for Penn Entertainment, told the Tribune. “Those partnerships alone are going to drive in new customers, and the facilities themselves will drive in new customers.”
When Illinois legalized riverboat gambling 35 years ago, it meant driving to places like Joliet, Aurora and Peoria, paying an admission fee and taking a two-hour ride down a river on a floating casino.
The Empress Casino, the forerunner of Hollywood Casino Joliet, launched its first riverboat in June 1992 from a newly built dock on the Des Plaines River south of Joliet near Channahon. The southwest suburban casino quickly became one of the busiest in the state, adding a second boat in December 1993.
The Hollywood Casino hit the Fox River in west suburban Aurora in June 1993 with two riverboats offering cruises from a downtown dock every 90 minutes.
In 1999 the state eliminated the cruising regulations, allowing casinos to remain docked or simply be built over water. Harrah’s Joliet became the first to ditch the boat in 2001, constructing a casino on barges connected to its pavilion.
In 2002 Penn acquired the Hollywood Casino chain, which then included the Aurora location and casinos in Mississippi and Louisiana. In 2005 Penn added the Empress Casino as part of its acquisition of Argosy Gaming. The Joliet casino was rebranded as Hollywood in 2009, after a fire that destroyed its Egyptian-themed pavilion.
By the time Rivers Casino Des Plaines opened in 2011 as what was to be the state’s 10th and final casino, the northwest suburban facility was simply built over a 144,000-gallon man-made pool to qualify as a riverboat.
The state’s sweeping 2019 gambling expansion bill, which added everything from six new casinos to sports betting, took it one step further, allowing all casinos to be built on or moved to dry land.
Rivers became the first to convert to a land-based casino, paying a $250,000 Gaming Board fee to drain the pool and expand over adjacent dry land in 2020.
The state’s newer casinos, including Bally’s Chicago, Wind Creek Chicago Southland and Hard Rock Rockford, are all land-based. Now two of the state’s oldest casinos — both still operating as permanently moored barges in Joliet and Aurora — are set to join the club.
Penn is building the new $185 million Hollywood Casino Joliet in the Rock Run Collection, a sprawling 310-acre mixed-use development adjacent to the Interstate 80 and Interstate 55 interchange. The facility will feature expanded gaming, with 1,000 slots, 43 table games, a retail sportsbook, a 10,000-square-foot event center and restaurants, including Sorellina by Giada.
The $360 million Aurora casino complex being developed near I-88 and Chicago Premium Outlets mall will include 1,200 gaming positions, a 220-room hotel, a retail sportsbook, a spa, an outdoor entertainment area, a 12,000-square-foot event center and Sorella by Giada, among other dining options.
New casinos have proved a big draw in Illinois. Since the November opening of its 70,000-square-foot casino in East Hazel Crest, Wind Creek has catapulted to second place among the state’s 16 casinos in revenue and admissions. In February, the south suburban casino generated nearly $13.5 million in adjusted gross receipts and drew more than 186,000 visitors, according to data from the Illinois Gaming Board.
Rivers Casino Des Plaines once again topped the list, at $37.6 million in adjusted gross receipts and 216,000 visitors in February, according to the Gaming Board. Hard Rock Rockford, which moved from a temporary casino to a larger permanent facility in August, ranked third, with $11.2 million in adjusted gross receipts and 109,000 admissions.
Bally’s Chicago ranked fourth, with 97,000 admissions, and sixth with $8.8 million in adjusted gross receipts for February at its temporary Medinah Temple facility. Rhode Island-based Bally’s, whose planned $250 million IPO for minority investors in the Chicago casino stalled at the SEC, recently broke ground on a $1.7 billion entertainment complex in River West slated to open in September 2026.
Languishing in the middle of the state’s pack, Hollywood Aurora ranked seventh, with 63,000 admissions, and eighth at $7.6 million in revenue for February. Hollywood Joliet was 10th, with 48,000 visitors, and ninth in revenue at $6.8 million, according to the Gaming Board.
Penn Entertainment, a publicly traded company, has grown to 42 casinos and racetracks in North America, including Ameristar Casino East Chicago in northwest Indiana, the Argosy Casino in downstate Alton near St. Louis and 18 Hollywood-branded casinos.
The company is banking on the new land-based casinos, including Giada’s restaurants, to boost the Hollywood brand in suburban Chicago.
“Our goal is to attract new customers and new people interested in what we’re going to be offering, not just from a gaming perspective, but from an entertainment perspective,” Williams said.
rchannick@chicagotribune.com
