Checking out: Suburban business closings in 2023
Some quickly made an impact, then were gone.
Others satisfied generations of customers.
These are some of the businesses that closed in 2023.
Bed Bath & Beyond
It started out low, then it started to grow — the number of brick-and-mortar Bed Bath & Beyond stores that closed, until they dwindled to nothing.
Acquired by Overstock, the furniture and home furnishings retailer now is an online entity after a New Jersey bankruptcy court approved Overstock’s bid on June 27.
Within the Daily Herald readership area, the last of the Bed Bath & Beyond locations included stores in Crystal Lake, Downers Grove, Geneva, Naperville and Vernon Hills.
Buca di Beppo
The chicken parmagiana and baked ziti suddenly stopped coming at Buca di Beppo on Wheeling’s Restaurant Row.
Roughly translated to “Joe’s small place,” on Aug. 21 the eatery unexpectedly shut down after more than 25 years.
Wheeling officials received no comment on the closing of Buca di Beppo, 604 N. Milwaukee Ave.
“The village was given no notice or other information,“ Village Administrator Jon Sfondilis said.
A chain launched in 1993 in Minneapolis, the Buca di Beppo website shows restaurants remaining in Lombard and Orland Park.
Café la Cave
Fine dining, weddings, proms and the like were held for more than 46 years at the Sutter family’s destination at 2777 Mannheim Road in Des Plaines.
Closed on March 11, the Sutters on Facebook simply said they were “starting a new adventure together.”
Some customers had events booked for Café la Cave past the closing date. The Daily Herald story concerning the closing said ownership was issuing a refund to one client and helping others find other sites.
In a Sept. 19 story, Russell Lissau reported the Des Plaines city council approved a plan for three stand-alone restaurants to be built at the 2.4-acre site. Guzman Y Gomez, Raising Cane’s and Cava are targeted for a summer 2024 opening.
Chez Francoise Poutinerie
A concept that deserved a longer stay, Thi Tram Nguyen opened Chez Francoise Poutinerie, 22 E. Chicago Ave., Naperville, with a dual mission — introduce diners to the Quebec fare of poutine and provide skills training to people with special needs so they could find jobs.
Nguyen named the restaurant after her 18-year-old son, who has autism.
She put her money where her mouth was, telling reporter Kevin Schmit that she employed six people with special needs while training 20 others. Alas, the revenue was not sufficient to keep the restaurant afloat.
Opened in July 2022, Chez Francoise Poutinerie closed on Aug. 25.
Craft Republic Bar & Grill
Sometimes a business doesn’t need to be a mainstay to have its closing draw a reaction.
Closing within a year of its March 2022 opening at 910-918 W. Dundee Road within Ridge Plaza in Arlington Heights, Chris Placek’s story on the closing of Craft Republic Bar & Grill attracted the second-most online page views of any 2023 Daily Herald story.
Craft Republic had gone into the 9,600-square foot former site of Fox & Hound Bar + Grill, owned by the same parent company, the San Diego-based Kelly Operations Group.
According to each sports bar’s website, there are no Craft Republic locations remaining in Illinois and one Fox & Hound, 1416 N. Roselle Road, Schaumburg.
Hanover Barber Shop
The oldest operating business in Hanover Park, the Hanover Barber Shop closed after 60 years on Saturday, Dec. 30.
Proprietor Tony Ruffolo, who started at the shop shortly after immigrating from Italy with his family in 1974, decided to retire, he told the Daily Herald’s Eric Peterson. Ruffolo took over operations when original owner Tony Perri died in 2002.
Perri opened the Hanover Barber Shop in October 1963 in the Hanover Square Shopping Center on Barrington Road. It’s been there ever since.
One of the shop’s barbers, Andrea Pileggi, is the daughter-in-law of Dominic Pileggi, who also is retiring and closing his D & D Barber Shop in Schaumburg, Peterson reported. Dominic Pileggi started in 1965, when it was Mike’s Barber Shop.
“You hit a certain age, you get tired,” he said.
Island Foods
People have a personal connection to their favorite grocery store, particularly an independent, family-owned grocer.
That’s why after 51 years it was hard for many to see the May 17 closure of Island Foods, 223 E. State Road, in Island Lake.
Customers had shopped there for decades, the Daily Herald’s Mick Zawislak reported. Island Foods also provided jobs for local residents, sometimes their first jobs.
The founders, Chicago meat market operators Fred Martucci Sr. and his three brothers, expanded into the grocery business. In 1972, they saw an opportunity at Island Lake’s closed Robinhood grocery. A few years later they moved to a new Island Foods they built nearby.
A half-century later, between bankruptcy of the Central Grocers Cooperative the store was part of and retirement plans by the store’s owners — Martucci’s daughters, Michele Crisci and Denise Turner, and their respective husbands, Joe and Mark — the end came.
“It’s bittersweet,” said Denise Turner, who with Michele worked at the store as children and never left. “That’s the best way to describe it.”
La Cabana Mexican Cafe
Fifty years is a good, long run for a restaurant.
It was probable La Cabana Mexican Cafe, 835 S. River St., Aurora, founded in 1972, would have exceeded that were it not for the unexpected death of its proprietor.
A Facebook post by the restaurant on June 22, which received 692 responses and 221 comments, said it made the difficult decision — “the right one for our family,” the post said — to close and put the property up for sale.
A previous post noted a GoFundMe fundraiser of a memorial for Steve Hernandez, the La Cabana owner who took over operations from his father in 1989. Steve Hernandez died suddenly on Jan. 6, the fundraiser statement said.
Regal Cinemas
Lincolnshire Mayor Elizabeth Brandt told the Daily Herald it wasn’t if but when the Regal Cinema movie theater in Lincolnshire, 300 Parkway Drive, would close.
Employees were informed within the week of its final day, on Jan. 26, Madhu Krishnamurthy wrote for the Daily Herald.
It came in the wake of the bankruptcy of parent company Cineworld, which announced the closings of 39 theaters. A slump in business due to the COVID-19 pandemic was attributed as the culprit.
Regal locations in Round Lake Beach and Warrenville also closed, though the Regal Cantera in Warrenville remains open under the Cinemark banner.
The Regal website shows remaining Illinois theaters in Bolingbrook, Crystal Lake, Lake Zurich and two Chicago locations.
Tribella Bar and Grill
A victim of the COVID-19 pandemic, Tribella Bar and Grill in Batavia closed on March 26.
Co-owners Joe and Christine DiGuglielmo opened the Italian-American restaurant in 1997 at 1900 Mill St., according to a Shaw Media article shared with the Daily Herald.
Over 26 years, Tribella gained a strong client base, but the pandemic conditions put the owners in dire straits.
“You can't survive with a 6,000-square-foot, sit-down nice restaurant on only to-go orders,” Christine DiGuglielmo told reporter Eric Schelkopf. “We lost so much money. And the cost of everything has gone up and business never came back.”
Acquaviva Winery & Ristorante now serves customers at 1900 Mill St.
Uprising Bakery & Cafe
Owner Corinna Sac held on as long as she could to Uprising Bakery & Cafe. She finally had to succumb.
As stated on its Facebook page, the store that opened in 2021 at 2104 Algonquin Road, Lake in the Hills, “was a neighborhood destination cafe serving scratch-made bakery items, food, coffee.”
It also offered live events, including one with a drag show intended for July 23, 2022. Protests of the event occurred leading up to the date. A release by Sac stated the night before the event Uprising Bakery was vandalized. Personal and online attacks on staff and patrons continued for the next 120 straight days, she said.
Business suffered as a result, Sac said, and she planned to close the bakery March 31. Proceeds from a GoFundMe account helped her stay open a while longer, but on May 31, Uprising Bakery & Cafe closed its doors.
Victory Auto Wreckers Inc.
A young man opens the driver’s side door of a beater car that appears to be stalled at the curb. The door falls off.
Still, that old car might be worth money.
Even if one never sold their junker or purchased parts from Victory Auto Wreckers Inc., through its classic television commercial generations of people knew of the auto recycling company at 710 E. Green St., Bensenville.
Founded in 1945, Victory Auto Wreckers closed to the public on Nov. 30. Third-generation owner Kyle Weisner, whose family bought the business in 1967, said his children were not interested in maintaining it, and he was ready to retire.
Happily, the ad lives in perpetuity online.
“I didn't think we had that much of an impact on people's lives,” Weisner told Daily Herald photographer Brian Hill.
You did.