Plans are underway for a strip retail center on the former Carlo Lorenzetti’s restaurant in Chicago Heights.
Plans were announced on the Facebook page of the Chicago Heights Economic Development Corp.
The posting said the city approved a sales agreement of the city-owned property, and that Grand Capital North America will finance plans to build the strip center, which will include multiple stores.
Representatives with the city were not available to comment on the plans.
The late Carlo Lorenzetti opened the Chicago Heights restaurant at 560 W. Lincoln Highway in 1986. It closed in June 2020.
Called Carlo’s by some and Lorenzetti’s by others, the restaurant served Italian-American cuisine.
Carlo Lorenzetti died in 2010 at age 79 and his family continued to operate the restaurant.
Lorenzetti served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War and began his restaurant career in 1955 with the Harbor Light Restaurant in Chicago’s Roseland neighborhood, according to his obituary.
Beginning in 1971, Lorenzetti operated a restaurant at 17309 S. Ashland Ave. in East Hazel Crest until a fire destroyed the building in 1986, according to a Chicago Tribune story.
“It’s like stepping back in time,” an online reviewer wrote on a travel website after a visit to Lorenzetti’s in 2016.
The restaurant’s website informed visitors that readers of The Star, Daily Southtown and Chicago Tribune newspapers had often voted for Lorenzetti’s in “best of” contests.
Accolades included Best Family Restaurant and Best Italian Restaurant in Chicago Southland, according to the restaurant’s website.
Carla Lorenzetti, daughter of Carlo Lorenzetti, told the Daily Southtown in 2016 that she and her siblings began working at the restaurant during summers when they were in high school.
“We did whatever it took to help dad out. He loved what he did and boy did it show. We all grew up with it,” she said at the time.
In 2019, the Lorenzetti family closed Gourmet Pizza by Carlo, a restaurant that the family had operated for 32 years in Flossmoor. The family continues to operate Livio’s Restaurant in St. John, Indiana.
