What Happened to Zest Bistro After Restaurant: Impossible (Food Network)?

Restaurant: Impossible (Food Network) filmed at Zest Bistro in Downers Grove, Illinois for the episode "When Life Gives You Lemons," which aired April 8, 2015, as season 11, episode 4. Local outlet Patch.com covered the production while it was underway at the Burlington Avenue storefront. Zest Bistro operated inside the Lemon Tree Grocer, a gourmet grocery store, and the two sides of the business were run together by longtime friends Shaun and Tim, who had opened the combined grocery-and-bistro concept roughly five years before the episode.

According to the show's account, both the retail grocery side and the full-service bistro side were carrying mounting debt by the time host Robert Irvine arrived. On air, Irvine's team addressed the shared space's layout and menu, working to give the bistro a clearer identity distinct from the grocery operation it shared a building with, while also tightening kitchen procedures and cost controls across both sides of the business. Later coverage compiled by the fan site Food Network Gossip and by Reality TV Revisited describes the bistro side of the business closing at one point, with stated plans to expand the restaurant's footprint and reopen, plans that, per those sites, did not ultimately proceed.

Restaurant-review aggregator Yelp's listing for the 935 W Burlington Avenue address is marked closed, with the listing showing a November 2025 update, and no subsequent reopening announcement was found. No dated 2026 evidence of current operation at the address was found for either the bistro or the grocery side of the business. The status described here applies to the Zest Bistro portion of the combined grocery-and-bistro operation featured in the episode.