Berwyn & Cicero

Berwyn and Cicero are the dense inner-ring suburbs southwest of Oak Park where Chicago’s bungalow belt keeps going past the city line. Berwyn has one of the largest collections of Chicago bungalows anywhere, a Depot District around the BNSF station with taverns and music venues, and a Czech and Bohemian history now shared with a large Mexican-American community. Cicero, on the city side, was the home of Western Electric’s Hawthorne Works and Al Capone’s headquarters in the 1920s, and today is a majority Mexican-American town with a commercial strip on Cermak Road. Both are cheaper than Oak Park and closer to the Loop than most suburbs.

Where it is

On the map, Berwyn runs from Roosevelt Road south to Pershing between Harlem and Lombard avenues; Cicero sits east of it between Lombard and the Chicago line at Cicero Avenue, from Roosevelt to the Stevenson. Metra’s BNSF line stops at Berwyn, Harlem Avenue and LaVergne in Berwyn and at Cicero, about 20 minutes to Union Station. The Pink Line ends at 54th/Cermak in Cicero, and the Blue Line’s Cicero and Austin stops sit on the Eisenhower along the north edge. Cermak Road, Ogden Avenue and Roosevelt Road are the main streets.

What to know if you’re moving here

Bungalows on small lots, close to the train, at prices the city’s bungalow belt no longer offers.

• Housing is brick Chicago bungalows built mostly from the 1910s to the 1950s, with typical prices of roughly $200,000 to $450,000 as a broad editorial estimate as of September 2026.
• Most bungalows have alley garages, and street parking is easy away from Cermak and Roosevelt.
• Public schools are Berwyn North District 98, Berwyn South District 100 and Cicero District 99, all feeding J. Sterling Morton High School District 201.
• Berwyn is a Cook County home-rule city with its own vehicle sticker and inspection rules; Cicero is a town with a large municipal workforce and its own quirks.
• The BNSF and the Pink Line both reach downtown in 20 to 30 minutes.
• The drawback is density and older housing that often needs electrical and plumbing updates, plus Cicero’s history of government controversy.

What to do if you’re visiting

Berwyn’s Roosevelt Road strip, the Depot District near the Metra station and Cermak Road in both towns are the places to eat and drink.

• Roosevelt Road has two of Berwyn’s anchors a block apart: FitzGerald’s, the roots music club in a 1900s roadhouse the FitzGerald family ran from 1980 until 2020, and Autre Monde Cafe, the Mediterranean restaurant with a garden patio that opened in 2011.
• In the Depot District on Stanley Avenue, Flapjack Brewery pours eight house taps led by Fantasmo Vanilla Cream Ale and bakes Neapolitan-style pizza in a wood oven.
• On Cermak Road, La Lupita has made its tortillas by hand since 2003 and has a rooftop lounge above the dining room, on a strip lined with Mexican bakeries, taquerias and carnicerias.
• Cicero’s pizza history runs through Paisans Pizzeria, whose original 16th Street shop opened in 1985 with a household oven, and Freddy’s Pizza, the Italian deli on 61st Avenue with the Italian ice line.
• Racing fans can catch live thoroughbreds at Hawthorne Race Course on Laramie Avenue, a track founded in 1891 that runs its 2026 meet on Sundays and Thursdays through November 1.
• The Berwyn Route 66 Car Show each August closes Ogden Avenue, the original Route 66, for classic cars.