Bryant Street: Finally on a roll?
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A sign on the door of the Bryant Street Market in Highland Park urges shoppers to "order your turkeys now!"
When Rob Collins bought the business in April, he added a produce section and stocked the front counter with cheese and meats.
He said he didn't realize the importance of the timing of his upscale venture.
One block west, a former dry cleaner at Bryant and North St. Clair streets is expected to be Park Bruges Cafe by the new year. This is on-again good news to residents, as the cafe's future was complicated earlier this year by sewer back flows.
Water and sewer line upgrades are finished and the street is repaved. Crews are completing the facade of the cafe -- the sister of Point Brugge Cafe in Point Breeze. (The variations on spellings of the Belgian city are purposeful. The owners, Jesse and Amy Seager, have said they want the cafes to have their own identities.)
Mr. Seager, who was frustrated when sewer-line work failed to keep water from the basement, says now, "It really feels good. Now we're talking about restaurants and customers and the neighborhood instead of sewage lines and dirt. It is coming to life now, and it feels good."
State Sen. Jim Ferlo, D-Highland Park, said he believes this moment is the real deal for Bryant Street, even though the street has failed to get retail traction over many years.
"People tell me they have been waiting for 30 years," said Rick Miller, the manager at the market. "Now Bryant Street is coming to life."
The several new restaurants along the corridor is a hopeful sign that Bryant will become a "restaurant niche" destination, said Mr. Ferlo, citing E2, an outgrowth of Enrico Biscotti in the Strip in a former American Legion building and the anchoring boost that Tambellini's gave to a corner at Mellon Street in 2007. Tambellini's is in the former home of Laforet.
First Published October 31, 2010 12:00 am
