Frontera Grill

Frontera Grill is a Mexican restaurant in Chicago, Illinois. It is owned by Rick Bayless. It opened on March 21, 1987, at 445 N. Clark Street[1] in Chicago's River North neighborhood and was Bayless' first restaurant.[2] In 2011, the Chicago Sun-Times called it "a study in the art of Mexican cookery".[3]

Frontera Grill
Location in River North, Chicago Show map of Downtown Chicago Frontera Grill (Illinois) Show map of Illinois Frontera Grill (the United States) Show map of the United States
Restaurant information
Established	1987 (1987)
Owner(s)	Rick Bayless
Head chef	Richard James
Food type	Mexican cuisine
Street address	445 N Clark St.
City	Chicago
State	Illinois
Postal/ZIP Code	60654
Country	United States
Coordinates	41°53′26″N 87°37′51″W
Seating capacity	65
Other information	Phone: (312) 661-1434
Website	www.rickbayless.com/restaurants/frontera-grill/

In 1994, Frontera Grill was ranked the world's third-best casual dining restaurant by the International Herald Tribune.[4] In 2007, Frontera Grill won the James Beard Foundation's "Outstanding Restaurant" award, designating it the best restaurant in the U.S.[5]

Although Frontera Grill is not a chain, the restaurant's name brand and logo are used in several of Bayless' other restaurants including Tortas Frontera at Chicago's O'Hare airport,[6] Frontera Fresco (closed January 2020),[7] and Frontera Cocina in Disney Springs, Florida.[8] The brand and logo were also leveraged when Bayless founded his Frontera Foods line of pre-packaged foods in 1996.[9] The packaged food line was sold to Chicago food processing company ConAgra in 2016.[10]