Maggie Daley Park restaurant update

Grant Park Conservancy President Bob O’Neill describes

the current challenges and future success of the eatery expected to open in 2017.

The original design for Maggie Daley Park excluded a restaurant because the city wanted to make sure that people liked the place before adding brick and mortar to it. Now that the Pritzker Pavilion and the Bean and the Lurie Garden have proven their ability to attract worldwide attention, a dining establishment is on its way. Bob O’Neill, President of the Grant Park Conservancy, explains the challenges and the potential of turning it into reality.

“It’s a risky venture,” he says. “The vendor had to pay for the building.”

This is just one of the hurdles facing the Chicago restaurant group that ultimately decided to jump and, last month, received approval to move forward by the city’s Planning Commission.

Others include the notion that people don’t go to parks in the wintertime and that the restaurant’s designated location, a former bus turnaround near Columbus and Monroe, is too far off the beaten path.

But O’Neill is confident that Chicago’s current renaissance can help the restaurant overcome those obstacles.

“Maggie Daley Park is wildly successful,” he explains. “This is actually going to work.”

There is plenty of evidence to support his optimism. Immediately south of Maggie Daley Park, the area once recognized largely as the place where they held Blues Fest and Taste of Chicago has become the home of Lollapalooza, Draft Town, and a winding museum campus. The streets surrounding it are boasting new upscale restaurants and breathtaking hi-rise developments. An innovative Green Fitness Space and, with any luck, the George Lucas Museum will follow.

O’Neill also believes that the restaurant’s design by Chicago’s Space Architects + Planners will blend seamlessly with the nature that surrounds it. The glass-walled, grass-topped structure, he explains, is “like an extension of the park, which is really cool because when you’re in the park, you don’t actually see a building.” It will also complement the modern wing of the Art Institute across the street.

When it opens, the restaurant will offer seating for 120 people inside and 240 people outside. According to O’Neil, “it will really open people to the idea of how interesting and great it is to eat in a really green setting.”

If all goes according to plan, the restaurant should be completed early next year. For O’Neill, it will mark a satisfying conclusion to a long journey.

“When I was growing up, everybody used to talk about Tavern on the Green in Central Park,” he remembers.

“We’re getting more of that. We have this great city. If you do it well, you’ll have this great restaurant.”

— Daniel Patton, Staff Writer