The ever-evolving Cherokee business district could see two new restaurant arrivals. One’s being fast-tracked, while the other won’t be opening doors until 2017, in all likelihood.
The B-Side’s intending to be the first to appear, a dive bar with a tagline of “beats, burgers and booze.” The management and ownership of nearby Yaqui’s on Cherokee will be behind that effort, with that group taking over the former Los Punk (2709 Cherokee) on March 1; there’s a hoped-for opening on-or-prior-to the neighborhood’s massive Cinco de Mayo festival in early May. The space will receive a significant makeover rather than an all-out renovation.
Francis Rodriguez, a co-owner of Yaqui’s, lives above that space and can see the B-Side location from both floors of his building, figuring that it’s “less than 75-meters away.” As such, he and Joseph Timm, a co-owner of Yaqui’s and primary bartender, will be able to keep close tabs on their new project; it’ll be largely concepted and run by another Yaqui’s mainstay, bartender Rob Engelhardt. At the B-Side, he’ll stock a huge jukebox with 45s, while the backbar will contain a receiver/turntable combination that’ll also supply the room with music, a definite calling card of the new space.
Los Punk offered a chalkboard filled with two-to-three daily specials, though that limited menu had largely dissipated before its December close. B-Side will do even less with the menu, numerically, basically offering variations on a single classic: a char-broiled hamburger, cooked on the club’s small, enclosed, back patio. Yaqui’s, with a smoker already on-premises, will simply roll that down the block come opening day. (A small bar, also custom-built for Yaqui’s but unused, is already on rollers, ready for that roll.)
“There are three pizza joints with a couple blocks of here,” says Rodriguez, owner of one of those. “There are plenty of Mexican restaurants. What this street needed was a hamburger spot.”
As a resident and business owner on the block, Rodriguez and partner Beckie Lewis had kept an eye open for a space nearby, if the right opportunity were available. With Los Punk’s departure, the stars aligned and their previous thoughts of a venue with a more-ambitious menu went away, for now.
Instead, the notion’s to launch a low-key spot with a heavy emphasis on those eat-in/take-out burgers, canned beers and cocktails so simple that “the drink’s name is in the order.” (Think Jack-and-Coke.)
The business that may be joining their B-Side is a new Mexican restaurant run by Jose Flores, owner of one of the block’s linchpins, Taqueria El Bronco (2817 Cherokee). Flores took advantage of an opportunity to buy a large building just two doors down from his own, at 2823 Cherokee. The concept he has in mind for space, as yet unnamed, would focus on seafood and be a bit more geared to fine dining, as opposed to the fast-and-casual approach of his popular El Bronco.
In time, the business may include involvement from a friend-and-restaurateur in Chicago, though those talks are still-in-progress. (Some of El Bronco’s kitchen staffers have traveled to Chicago for training, especially on fish dishes.) As the big building used to run as a Salvation Army retail outlet (above), there’s no restaurant infrastructure in the space now and Flores says that construction and all the rest of the necessary prep will push the opening into 2017.
(It should be noted here, too, as Flores took control of the building, a significant graffiti outbreak hit the old retail store’s light brick exterior and nearly-floor-to-ceiling windows. The most recent damage, which he thinks might be irreparable, came to those huge front windows, hit by fire extinguisher blasts of paint. “That kind of changed my mind” for a bit,” Flores. “I thought I might want to leave it to someone else. So much trouble, it’s crazy.”)
Rodriguez says that he and Flores, as visitors to each other's restaurants, talk frequently and believe the block’s maturing and ready for more variety. Instead of just hoping that, they’re investing in that challenge.
