Liquor Store Feasibility Study in the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN Metro Area

The Chicago record for liquor stores

From FY2017 and FY2026, borrowers starting or acquiring liquor stores in Chicago received 241 approvals and $184.9 million in gross dollars. On the list of US metro and micro areas, by SBA's count, Chicago sits at 6 of 426 for this class, while the class is 8 of 39 over the asset classes recorded locally. The middle half of loans runs from $200,000 to $1.1 million. The median loan here is $428,000, 0.95x the class median nationwide, so approvals track the nation. On the location quotient, 1.15x, liquor stores take a larger slice of the area's loans than the whole nation.

Program mix and lenders for liquor stores

The 7(a) holders for package liquor stores are led as follows: for a reader, the largest holder is Byline Bank, with 43 loans and $44.3 million; The Huntington National Bank comes next at 30, and U.S. Bank, National Association follows at 26. The 7(a) program accounts for 234 loans and the 504 it reports 7, which shows how liquor store loans here divide between the two programs. Chicago liquor stores have no franchise share on this page, as the cohort is under 30 loans. No 504 lender is listed for bottle shops and liquor stores in Chicago on this page. Every name is the loan's holder in SBA's records today, which is a statement about where these loans sit but nothing on how a lender lends.

Where in Chicago and when

143 loans sit in Cook County, IL, 30 in DuPage County, IL and 27 in Lake County, IL. By year, in practice, FY2025 is the high mark for bottle shops and liquor stores in Chicago (38 approvals, $34.9 million) and FY2026 the low (18 loans, $23.8 million).

Floors and limits behind the Chicago figures

Chicago has too thin a funded cohort of package liquor stores from FY2017 to FY2021 for a charge-off rate; Loan Analytics withholds it, which is no sign of zero losses. A caution: area totals for package liquor stores follow the project county, with the July 2023 boundaries and a name match, and a loan in an unplaceable county does not enter Chicago. Over FY2017 to FY2024, 13.0% or more of Chicago liquor store loans were called off after approval, a floor, by SBA's count, lifted to 15.7% at the ceiling when undisbursed loans count.

What a package liquor stores study must settle in Chicago

For a proposed liquor stores project in Chicago, the study tests demand before it tests anything else, meaning neighborhood traffic and shelf mix together with delivery and online rivals. The 241 approvals show lenders have funded bottle shops and liquor stores there, which does not carry over to a given address. The study must show debt service coverage for package liquor stores in Chicago under a late-start case; the floors for loss in this table are the reason why. Appraisal questions for bottle shops and liquor stores in Chicago include inventory counts at closing and license portability. No approval follows from this page; it gives banks and borrowers a shared baseline for Chicago. Cost comes next, including shrinkage and security and cooler and shelving, weighed against the Chicago median loan of $428,000.