From Chicago Crain's Blog on Aug. 7, 2014
When Amy Morton opened Found
Kitchen and Social House in Evanston in 2012, weekend wait times
for a table averaged two and a half hours. The farm-to-table concept was
soaring in Chicago, but it was still new in the North Shore suburb.
“It was an empty canvas,” Ms. Morton says. “There was a huge
void.” While a few restaurants, including Quince
at the Homesteadand Union
Pizzeria, were
offering more contemporary dining, Evanston locals often went to Chicago for a
night out. Now, Ms. Morton says, Evanston has become a dining destination for
Chicagoans.
“People
from the city are just coming here on their own, it's really something,” she
says. “We've been open a year and a half, and in the last year we've seen so
many things open.” She deadpans: “It is the next little Brooklyn.”
Brooklyn may be a stretch, looking at the gleamingly clean streets
of a town where spitting on public property is illegal. But it's hard to ignore
the precious tinge that the artisanal movement is batting around the city:
whole-hog meat shops where the owner can name the farmer who raised each cut (Homestead Meats);
loaves of bread made by hand from local grains and sold in compostable
packaging (Hewn);
restaurant bars that serve liquor from distilleries within biking distance over
old Johnny or Jim (Found).
Since the start of 2013, nearly two dozen new restaurants and
breweries have opened in Evanston, and the artisanal, local-food movement
influences many of them. There are two new restaurant/breweries (Peckish
Pig, Smylie Bros. Brewing Co. ), a
brewery with a tasting room (Temperance
Beer Co.) and a home brew shop, Brew
Camp. A
nanobrewery,Sketchbook
Brewing Co., is
slated to open this month.
A sampling of the restaurant openings includes David Morton and
Michael Kornick's DMK Burger and Fish; Dollop Coffee Co. and Hoosier Mama Pie Co.; the fast-casual Lyfe Kitchen; seasonally focused restaurant Farmhouse; and, most recently, Boltwood, co-owned by former Publican chef de
cuisine Brian Huston, which joined the farm-to-table clan in July.
And more is in the works: the Wood Shed, a restaurant serving wood-fired pizzas
and smoked meats, is scheduled to open this fall on Central Street.
Debbie
Evans, who, along with her husband, Jamie, owns the Peckish Pig, sees the
Evanston renaissance as an outgrowth of the artisanal movement in Chicago and
throughout the Midwest. “People are realizing how important it is to have great
food and how accessible it really is, without breaking the bank. Evanston has
caught on, and it's spreading like wildfire,” Ms. Evans says.
The
brewery collaborates with other new, locally minded businesses. One is Hewn,
which makes a “spent grain” bread incorporating grains used by Peckish Pig and
Temperance in the brewing process.
Hewn
co-owner Ellen King says working together is part of the fun. “We're all local in
the community and our kids all go to school here and we're all having fun with
our businesses,” she says. “It's honestly like a perfect storm of everybody
following their passion and keeping it in their community.”
Johanna
Nyden, Evanston's economic development division manager, says the food and
drink renaissance there is simple to explain: In Evanston, as elsewhere, diners
are demanding more. “I think 20 years ago when I was here the coolest thing
that came was like a Bar Louie. But now, that doesn't cut it,” she says.
—Kate Silver, Follow On Dining on Twitter at @CrainsLife.
