I would love to see another restaurant in town. I hope they can make the numbers work.
Riverside Info » About Riverside
Local Business Notes
(16 posts)-
Posted Friday Sep 28, 2007 11:53 #
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It would be helpful to have a tastefully designed sign on Harlem Avenue at Burlington with an arrow pointing west with "Historic District" at the top and a listing of restaurants below. If the restaurants are successful, boutique retail will follow.
Posted Sunday Sep 30, 2007 18:02 # -
What restaurants? At $30+ a foot what kind of traffic would it take to make one work? How many covers, what kind of pricing? I heard the story before the building was built that "a well known" restaranteur" was considering the space, but on closer questioning, there wasn't even a letter of intent and no name was divulged. Take 8-10,000 feet and build it out, then divide by what you need for daily volume and receipts, and you can't make it work there. This is fantasy. It always was. We have a town whose main virtue is that it's street pattern discourages traffic and allows it to remain tyranquil, and then these oafs want to suck in traffic and visitors from where? Berwyn? Lyons? Stickney?
The folks in Hinsdale and Oak Brook and the like have more than enough places to go. THis is the ultimate folly. Someone may sign a lease, and may build out the space, but they won't be able to make a living. Restaurants have a voacious appetite for money, and overhead is relentless. We are whitewashing the elephants.
Posted Sunday Sep 30, 2007 20:38 # -
If, by chance, the overhead were less than $30+ / sq ft, wouldn't it be more feasible for business? How about buildouts that are small and not Taj Mahals? --Like the Bohemian restaurant or Jems? We still do not have a place to go for a Sunday breakfast in town. Think small and build from there, never losing attention to detail, and keep to the Riverside's essence.
We can bring the people in from the northern suburbs, Oak Park, and the city with some creative advertising. Even the western suburbs that do not know and appreciate what they have sitting next door to them can come in. Signs that suggest and direct can help in that effort. We DO have the goods with Olmsted's design.
I have been looking at colleges for my daughter and of late I think we found that what she is looking for in a campus is one that most closely resembles Riverside. My daughter, who has lived her entire life in Riverside, has been leading this standard. She says she likes 'green' and 'the trees'. A lot of times going off to college is the first time a person sees how other places are. When she comes back to Riverside from a visit she has commented how nice Riverside is - the layout and the green. I then invariably call it inspired. She seems to 'get' Riverside, especially when she compares it with other places.
A college, after all, is a mini town. Some are even like mini cities, but a lot have populations under Riverside.
I have found that the word 'campus' comes from the Latin 'field'. A well designed campus, therefore, has an organic unity and integrity. So there should not be $30 sq ft buildouts in a small town that would be garish and stick out and would ruin that organic unity, or that 'unified landscape' that Olmsted talked about.
And sure enough, it turns out that Olmsted did a lot of college campus designing. The names that I see in the link below are ones that I have consistantly seen as 'most beautiful campuses' in the guidebooks.
http://architecture.about.com/library/blolmsted-schools.htm
http://architecture.about.com/od/landscapedesign/a/olmstedcampus.htm
Now, Don, can success spoil Riverside? Yes, possibly. This is what the 4 to 1 vote no on the TIF was about. People in this town really care about not comprising the essence of Riverside. And worse, can trying, and then failing, to achieve success ruin Riverside? Yes, if not done right. The VC was not done right in terms of its scale. But if the rents can be whittled down to something more manageable for our campus, maybe it can be successful enough.
I remember the live music wafting throughout the center of town during the VC open house. That stand up bass was cool. I even think Freddy would have liked it!
Here is a link describing that open house, as well as a link to a picture of a very modest facade and business from Italy, that nevertheless shows charm, spirit, and a attention to detail that is what I was attempting to say above. Think Freddy's in Cicero, too.
http://www.riversideinfo.org/forum/topic.php?id=395&page&replies=9#post-5267
Freddy's, by way of Chris H
http://www.riversideinfo.org/forum/topic.php?id=226&page&replies=16#post-3575Posted Monday Oct 1, 2007 12:42 # -
The prices they are asking are too high, same with the Arcade, and opportunities are being lost. The price for square footage plus the build out make the rents approach those of trendy Chicago locations, I am told. Inevitably, they will have to come down to market. I hope by that time we do not end up with lesser tenants than might have been had. I think everyone agrees restaurants are what there is demand for. I don't know what the profit margins on fresh flowers are like, but it is interesting there will be a florist there. Maybe they got a better price for being an early adapter.
Posted Monday Oct 1, 2007 12:54 # -
Shamrock Garden donated all the floral displays for the Junior's Kitchen Walk yesterday. They were gorgeous!
Posted Monday Oct 1, 2007 14:51 #
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