Tax break to help TV chef ’s venture
Revenue sharing OK’d for Chuck Lager America’s Tavern
An Italian-born celebrity chef is bringing one of his restaurant concepts to Orland Park.
The Village Board approved a sales tax sharing agreement Monday to bring Chuck Lager America’s Tavern.
It is one of several restaurants and bars operated by Fabio Viviani, whose appearances on Bravo’s reality competition series “Top Chef ” won him the title of “Fan Favorite.”
The bar and restaurant will occupy the 9,000-square-foot space at 14035 S. La Grange Road that had been occupied by Granite City Food & Brewery, which closed two years ago. The spot is just west of the Orland Park Crossing shopping center.
The agreement will split, 50-50, sales tax revenue generated by the business, with Chuck Lager receiving a maximum of $500,000. The term of the agreement is for 10 years, but the dollar amount rebated to the business could be reached sooner than that.
The company estimates that remodeling the space will cost about $2 million.
Viviani, founder and chief executive of Fabio Viviani Hospitality, has a hand in more than three dozen bars and restaurants around the country.
Locally, they include Siena Tavern, Bar Siena and Prime & Provisions in Chicago, as well as restaurants inside Penn National Gaming’s Hollywood Casino locations in Indiana, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, according to Viviani’s website.
Other restaurants include Osteria by Fabio Viviani, which has locations in Downers Grove as well as Los Angeles and near Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.
Chuck Lager “takes the tavern-casual experience and elevates it a little bit,” he told the Village Board before the vote. The business will offer a lunch and dinner menu, he said.
Orland Park would be the first Illinois location for the business, which has restaurants in Delaware, Florida and New Jersey, with two more Florida locations in the works.
Viviani said the restaurant will have space for private events, and he estimated it would employ perhaps 80 to 90 people in full- and part-time positions.
He grew up in Florence and moved to the United States in 2005, initially living in California.
He lives in Barrington.
Viviani told Orland Park trustees his plan is to open the Chuck Lager restaurant in spring 2022.
He said being able to recruit staff could delay his plans, as well as any obstacles in obtaining building materials for the project.
Granite City had closed the Orland Park location in November 2019, and at the same time abruptly shuttered Illinois restaurants in Northbrook and Peoria along with three Indiana locations. The company filed for bankruptcy the following month.