The Chicago metro area is getting its first Dutch Bros cafe this week, with additional Illinois locations set to open later this year.

The West Coast coffee chain announced the openings in a press release Wednesday, May 13, adding details about available freebies.

Dutch Bros coming to Melrose Park

Dutch Bros will be making its Chicago suburbs debut in Melrose Park, with doors set to open Thursday, May 14, at 1931 N. Mannheim Road.

The cafe will operate from 5 a.m.-10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 5 a.m.-11 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

Melrose Park customers will be able to snag a free keychain with any drink purchase on opening day, while supplies last, according to the chain.

“Opening in the Chicago area has always been a dream for us at Dutch Bros, and Melrose Park is just the beginning,” Dutch Bros Local Market Lead Allie Lahti said in the release.

Where else is Dutch Bros opening locations in Illinois?

The chain also announced plans to open cafes in Rockford, New Lenox and Buffalo Grove, with locations slated to open this summer. The chain lists the Rockford location as “coming soon” to 7103 E. State St. on its website.

The amount of state and local taxes paid here also is near the nation’s highest.

Illinoisans continue to pay the highest combined state and local tax rate in the country, according to WalletHub.

Effective state and local tax rates totaled almost 17% for a median Illinois household last year, compared with the national average of just over 11.02% and higher than No. 2 New York, at 14.95%.

The median amount of state and local taxes for an Illinois household was $12,538 last year, fourth-highest in the country. The national median was around $8,949. (These amounts use a different household measurement.)

Illinois’ burden is driven by property, sales and excise taxes that exceed national averages and those in neighboring states.

Property taxes are especially high, with an effective rate of 1.92% of the value of a typical home, more than double the national median of 0.89%.

Sales taxes are also elevated in Illinois, with a 6.25% state rate and a nearly 9% combined state and local rate on average.

High taxes were a top-two issue for 58.1% of likely Illinois voters in a recent poll. State residents aren’t waiting for lawmakers to hear their concerns — almost all of the nearly 83,000 who left Illinois in 2024 went to states with lower taxes.

In Iowa, the neighboring state with the next-highest combined state and local tax rate, the annual tax total for median household is over $3,841 less than in Illinois. Indiana and Wisconsin also impose significantly lower combined burdens.

Illinois needs to reduce its tax burden to encourage more people and businesses to stay or move here. That cannot happen without improving fiscal responsibility. Lawmakers should consider reforms such as:

• Enacting a spending cap to ensure the state’s budget grows responsibly.
• Rightsizing agency spending by eliminating waste and returning costs to sustainable levels.
• Reforming pensions to prevent retirement obligations from crowding out necessary services and driving up taxes.

Illinois health officials are investigating a potential case of hantavirus that is unrelated to the cruise ship outbreak that made headlines in recent weeks.

The Winnebago County resident was likely exposed to the virus through rodent droppings while cleaning a home, the Illinois Department of Health announced Tuesday. The person has since recovered from mild symptoms that did not require hospitalization, the department said in a statement.

State health officials said the person has not traveled internationally or made contact with any of the patients from the cruise ship. The person’s case is a different strain of the virus.

“Unlike the Andes strain of Hantavirus responsible for the cruise outbreak, the North American strains are not known to spread from person-to-person,” the agency said in a statement. “The risk of contracting Hantavirus of any kind remains very low for Illinois residents.”

The agency is awaiting lab results from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to confirm it is hantavirus. The test can take up to 10 days.

Three people have died from a hantavirus outbreak on the cruise ship MV Hondius that set off April 1 from Argentina. Nine confirmed cases have been linked to that outbreak. Symptoms can include fever, chills and muscle aches, and usually show between one to eight weeks after exposure.

None of those cruise ship passengers were from Illinois, according to the Illinois and Chicago departments of public health.

The state has had seven cases of hantavirus since 1993, the most recent being in March 2025, according to the state agency.