Core investors chicken no more
Historic corner building will get new life as a chicken restaurant
I got my first pair of glasses about 10 years ago. I remember the moment, leaving Hakim Optical at King and Hess and stepping out onto the sidewalk. I looked around. Suddenly, everything was in glorious high-def. Guess I’d needed those specs a long time.
A couple of years later, when I was due for a new pair, Hakim was gone. They’d been there for decades. I was sorry they closed. But even more disappointing was what happened to the corner afterwards.
That fine old brick building, even though it sits on a busy corner, stayed empty. It looked lonelier by the year. That didn’t fit with the rebirth of downtown.
The property was owned by developer Denis Vranich, but clearly he had more important projects on his plate. Not so long ago, however, a development notice appeared on the front window at King and Hess.
And that brings us to the building’s new owner, real estate broker and first-time developer Vincent R. Formosi. He has come to like downtown and decided “it’s time I put my money where my mouth is.”
He’s purchased a bundle of three properties — the one at the northwest corner of King and Hess, a little house directly behind it, and a brick house in Hess Village.
He paid about $1 million for the three, and is well on his way to spending that much again renovating them.
There’s a stone panel at the top of the building on King that says “A. D. 1927.” But that is just the age of the parapet the stone sits on, added when a block of apartments was tacked onto the north side of the original building.
City Hall heritage files say this building might be nearly as old as Canada itself. A.L. Reeves had a bakery there in the late 1800s. Hamilton Hardware was there in the 1920s. And many other enterprises through the generations.
Long ago people lived in the building, up the stairs. They will again. Formosi is to have three new high-end units ready to go in the spring.
But what has him excited is the tenant who’s just signed a 10-year lease on the main floor.
You may know the name Turtle Jack’s, a Burlington-based outfit with 17 restaurants around this end of the province. Founded by electrician-turned-entrepreneur Jim Lishman, the chain targets the suburbs.
But it’s his son Clark we’re talking to today. He is 38, the company’s chief operating officer, and he wants to feed downtown people — starting with Hamilton.
The new restaurant is The Coop Wicked Chicken. And The Coop’s tag line: “Tasty as cluck.” Kind of naughty. “We’ll push some boundaries,” Lishman says. “I don’t mind getting in trouble a little.” It’s millennials he’s after.
Lishman knows food, and is an alumnus of New York City’s Culinary Institute of America. “I have tasting skills,” he says.
He lives in North Halton, but eating out now is all about here. “I fell in love with Hamilton,” he says. James North, Augusta, Locke. He identifies himself at each place, explains he’s coming to town.
There’s a niche, he says, for the bird. He’s not talking quarter-BBQ’d chicken. Places like Charred and Swiss Chalet are taking good care of that. Chicken sandwiches — $7 to $10 — will be the specialty at The Coop. Seared, pulled or fried.
This being all about chicken, you can get an egg on top of anything. Deep-fried devilled eggs too. And chicken on a waffle with Jack Daniels maple syrup.
The restaurant look will be raw, though it will cost about $500,000 to get there. Lishman thinks that five years out, there could be 15 Coops. Downtown Burlington’s next, but he’s already eyeing James North.
Doors open at King and Hess in March, with the promise of first-rate fowl in a place where “punk rock meets rustic henhouse.” Old building, new life. This is the way downtown works best.