What do you get when you combine an LGBTQ-themed hotel with the legacy of one of Chicago’s most renowned chefs, the great Yoshi Katsumura?
You could get an amazing anchor for Northalsted, that lively Lakeview territory. Last week, plans for a boutique hotel that would cater to LGBTQ patrons was approved by the Chicago City Council’s Zoning Committee, paving the way for its construction on the corner of North Halsted Street and West Aldine Avenue.
The six-story, 51-room hotel would replace Yoshi’s Café, a neighborhood treasure, and my old home away from home.
Yoshi’s closed in 2021, yet it is fitting that the hotel is landing on that iconic space. The restaurant run by the celebrated chef and his wife, Nobuko, held forth for nearly 40 years and hosted a richly diverse group of avid fans.
The hotel’s developers are planning upscale amenities, including a rooftop bar, pool and cabanas; a restaurant; and a “speakeasy” lounge in the basement.
It will be an attention-grabbing addition to Chicago’s Northalsted neighborhood, the area that extends along Halsted north from Belmont Street to Waveland Avenue. Northalsted, formerly known as Boystown, has long been a celebrated gay neighborhood.
The strip of restaurants and bars along Halsted is one of the most vibrant LGBTQ-centric commercial areas in the country, boasting a vibrant party scene, mixed in with service-related businesses, beauty salons, social service agencies and coffee shops.
Northalsted hosts some of the biggest street celebrations in Chicago, including the annual Pride Parade, which packs in about 1 million revelers from around the nation, and the massive Market Days street fair that takes over the neighborhood for one weekend every August.
The area’s bars are finely specialized, offering every brand of LGBTQ festivities from kitschy showtunes to techno leather guys.
Now comes a hotel to level it up. And if it’s lucky, it will carry Yoshi’s aura.
For 39 years, Yoshi’s Café, the white two-story building with the blue awning at North Halsted and Aldine, was a community hub. Its master chef served up his spectacular culinary creations, which won many honors and were cited as inventive and visionary. Yoshi was doing “Asian fusion” before the term was invented.
His fine fare drew fans from the North Shore, south suburbs, tourists from afar, the lakefront high-rises nearby and, yes, plenty from Boystown.
When Yoshi’s opened its doors, there were only a couple of gay bars on that stretch of North Halsted. Yoshi built a culinary community that helped spawn today’s thriving entertainment district. He served for 22 years on the board of the North Halsted Area Merchants Association, now the Northalsted Business Alliance; he was one of the first non-gay business owners to be elected to the group. He was known as “the Mayor of Boystown.”
Yoshi passed away in 2015, but Nobuko Katsumura carried on until the restaurant closed in 2021. I and legions more sorely miss it. Yoshi’s was the place where you could come home when you had no home. Yoshi and Nobuko were the ultimate hosts.
The corner of Aldine and Halsted now carries the honorary name Yoshi Katsumura Way. In 2018, a Japanese lilac tree was planted on the street in his honor, donated by the business alliance.
Ald. Bennett Lawson, 44th, represents Lakeview and is backing the hotel project. He helped forge a “good neighbor agreement” with the hotel owners that “aligns with feedback from neighbors in the area,” Block Club Chicago reported.
Allan O’Brien, owner of Men’s Room Chicago, and his business partners Andreas Campbell and Bob Sievers are leading the project. The agreement commits that “the hotel’s lobby, restaurant, speakeasy, and rooftop lounge will be open to the public” and that the hotel will host a series of community events for neighborhood residents.
And “the commemorative ‘Yoshi’s’ Tree’ near the site will be protected and preserved throughout the construction process, and for the duration of the hotel’s operation.”
Nobuko Katsumura lives nearby and is grateful that Yoshi’s tree will be preserved. She is excited about the proposed hotel, she told me.
The hotel’s developers told Nobuko that they plan to honor Yoshi’s but have not yet specified how. “I am just waiting for them to come up with how they can include Yoshi’s legacy there,” Nobuko said.
So am I. How about if the hotel’s restaurant were to feature a few of the scrumptious menu items that Yoshi pioneered, such as his mussels and shitake mushrooms swimming in a spicy Thai broth? The Japanese kabocha pumpkin ravioli. That magnificent red snapper, fried to perfection and lavished with hoisin sauce.
Better yet — sign up Mari Katsumura, Yoshi and Nobuko’s daughter and the hugely talented Michelin-starred chef — to run that restaurant.
Laura Washington is a political commentator and longtime Chicago journalist. Her columns appear in the Tribune each Wednesday. Write to her at LauraLauraWashington@gmail.com.
Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.
