Coming attractions
Kitsch’N is next door. Victory’s Banner is down the street. Wishbone is practically around the corner. You would be nuts to open another brunch spot in or around Roscoe Village, right?
Wrong, says Darryl Jendrzejak, general manager for Orange on Roscoe, which is slated to open Thursday for brunch in the storefront recently occupied by another mostly breakfast joint, Brett’s Cafe Americain. “I think that it’s terrific,” he says, of his neighbors. “We can make this little niche be known for its brunches. It’s been asking for it.”
The city already has two Oranges — one in Lakeview on Clark and one south of the Loop on Harrison. Both, especially the one on Clark, are known for drawing enormous crowds, and for their creative fare, including jelly doughnut pancakes, fresh juices and fruit sushi called “frushi.”
The Roscoe restaurant will eventually serve dinner and, unlike the other two BYOB locations, has a liquor license, said Jendrzejak, who predicted dinner service would begin in mid-June. Drinks will include the Orange Delicious (freshly squeezed orange, pineapple or grapefruit juice and vodka) and mimosas made with freshly squeezed orange juice.
Orange on Roscoe, 2011 W. Roscoe St., Chicago
— Trine Tsouderos
Buh-bye
After six months, the owners have pulled the plug on Graze, at 35 W. Ontario St. “It was quite a shock,” says chef Bob Zrenner. “The owners believed that the public was rejecting what we were trying to do.”
What Zrenner did — and did well, in my estimation — was small-plates cooking, fashioning a DIY degu kind of menu that encouraged multiple courses without overstraining the wallet. Zrenner says weekend business boomed (“more than 250 every Saturday”) but mid-week customer counts were paltry.
Zrenner was the chef at X/O in Boys Town back when that restaurant did small plates (it has since reformatted to a simpler, neighborhood-dining concept), and he’s starting to wonder if his style of food is ever going to succeed here. “I don’t think the city of Chicago wants it,” he says of diminutive plates. “They’re great in concept, but it’s a hard sell. Everybody still wants to see a big steak.”
— Phil Vettel
