The Oak Park Village Board approved ordinances that allow several local businesses to get a liquor license, including a new restaurant opening in town next month and another establishment that wants to serve alcohol with breakfast.
The board approved issuance of a Special Events Class E liquor license to the Oak Park-River Forest Chamber of Commerce. Executive Director Darien Marion Burton was at the meeting and presented his reasoning for the application to the board.
“As I came into the executive directorship, I wanted to look at making sure our chamber was the model for how to do business ethically, legally and sustainably in Oak Park,” he said. “Working with Assistant Director Cameron Davis, decided that applying for a liquor license was the right thing to do.”
The class E license will allow the chamber to hold 10 special events during the year.
Cafe Cubano has operated in neighboring Elmwood Park for over two decades and had a liquor license there, according to a village of Oak Park staff memo to the board. In order to have a liquor license when the new location in Oak Park opens next month, restaurant owners needed board approval.
Cubano is moving into the former Fritzi’s Delicatessen storefront at 113 N. Oak Park. The deli had a Class B-1 liquor license but Cubano owners want a B-1 “to sell all alcoholic liquors for consumption at tables on its premises” – including tropical drinks, according to the staff memo.
The board also heard from a district employee of the restaurant chain Egg Harbor, which sought an amendment that will allow license-holders in the village to begin serving alcohol at 7 a.m.
Speaking for the restaurant chain, Joyce Parich told the board that some nearby municipalities have OK’d restaurants being able to serve such alcoholic beverages as bloody Marys and mimosas during breakfast hours.
Trustee Ravi Parakkat declined to vote on the ordinances related to the liquor license, citing his role as the founder of Takeout 25 and president of its board. Takeout 25 was born during the pandemic and urges spending $25 per week on takeout at restaurants to help keep them in business, according to its website.
Tom Ackerman is a freelancer.
