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New restaurant and bar to open in downtown area
DeKALB | Downtown DeKalb will see a new restaurant and bar soon.
Tapalaluna, Inc., which will be located at 226 Lincoln Highway, will be a retail liquor store, bar and restaurant. There is no opening date set yet, but it may open around the middle or the end of summer, said Trevor Turner, director of operations of O’Leary’s Pub & Grill and Filo Spinatos.
Randall Rodriguez, winner of Bon Appetit magazine’s 2004-05 Iron Chef Awards, will be the restaurant’s chef.
Mel Whitmer, owner, plans for the restaurant to have an upscale, adult atmosphere.
“We as a company feel as if there is a demand [in DeKalb] for something more metropolitan,” Turner said.
With the success of Filo Spinatos, 241 E. Lincoln Highway, the O’Leary’s group took the community’s response and decided to open Tapalaluna.
Turner believes people enjoy not having to leave DeKalb to find the atmosphere and food they can find in Chicago.
“People would walk into Filo Spinatos and say ‘Oh my gosh, we don’t feel like we’re in DeKalb, we feel like we’re in Chicago,’” Turner said.
Whitmer must apply for an A-CBD license through the city of DeKalb.
“[Whitmer] has sent in a development agreement regarding one of the places in downtown DeKalb,” said Denise Setchell of the city of DeKalb’s legal department.
Receiving the development agreement is the first step of many when applying for an A-CBD (A-Central Business District) license.
If the development agreement is approved by the city council, it will go before the liquor commission, where approval could be made and the license would be issued at that point.
According to Chapter 38 of the Municipal Code of DeKalb, an A-CBD license is very similar to a class A license, in that both require at least 75 percent of profit from the sale of alcohol and no more than 25 percent of profit can be from goods other than liquor.
“We do not have an exact [opening] day yet,” Turner said, “But we’re looking at the middle to the end of summer.”
» Next City Article: High turnout for Pay-It-Forward House celebration
Way to go City Council! You sure have simplified that liquor code with your A-CBD license! When are you rolling out those X-WYZ licenses? When was the last time the city audited "profits" at any bar?
So that is what all the fuss was about? Thousands of man hours and millions in scarce city funds to put in another packaged liquor outlet? Brilliant! I feel so renewed!