With its honey cakes, Sweet Moon cafe is coming to Wilmette

An already rich baked-goods scene in Wilmette is about to get richer. 

Sweet Moon Cafe and Bakery is set to open this fall at 1222 Washington Court, near the Wilmette Metra station.

Celebrated for its honey cakes, the Chicago-based cafe specializes in Eastern European, Slavic and American breakfast food and desserts. The cafe’s website lists its solyanka soup, syrniki and omelets as bestsellers.

Aigerim Mambetova and Marlen Alchinov founded the cafe in 2021, and their niece Zhannat Raiymbek manages Sweet Moon.

“My aunt actually started baking at home,” Raiymbek said. “She started with her famous honey cakes, and her customer base was so huge around Chicago. It was over 2,000 people, and she couldn’t handle it anymore at home. They decided to start the bakery.”

Raiymbek said every item on the menu is made in house, is organic and does not use artificial additives. 

The bakery’s new Wilmette location will occupy a storefront that most recently housed Fuel Fusion restaurant, which closed in September 2025, just a few months months after it opened. Fuel Fusion replaced the original Fuel restaurant in 2025, as previously reported on by The Record.

Lisa Brosnan, Wilmette’s Business Development Planner, said the bakery’s new spot is ideal for business.

“It’s a really great location being so close to the Metra station because they’re big on breakfast and they’re big on pastry and they have a lot of handheld kind of foods,” Brosnan said. “All the people could really just hop in there before getting on the train.”

The cafe is currently under renovation, and an exact opening date is not yet known.

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