By Bob Seidenberg
Heartwood Center owner Nancy Floy and restaurant owners Gabi Walker-Aguilar and Byron Glapion are moving forward with their dream of creating a restaurant and community project in the Dempster-Dodge neighborhood despite the Evanston City Council’s rejection of their funding request Monday night.
Evanston City Council members voted to reject the group’s request for $400,000 assistance in Tax Increment Finance that Heartwood and the restaurant owners sought they to fill in the financing gap to create a new restaurant, Choice Authentic, at the 1826-30 Dempster Street location just east of Heartwood.
The council rejection came as supporters of Walker-Aguilar and Glapion, the owners of 4 Suns Plant Based Kitchen at 1906 Main St., urged council members to support the restaurant as an important gathering place and healthy foods alternative at the site which previously had been eyed by Popeyes and is surrounded by fast food restaurants.
Support came ‘flooding’ from all over: Floy
In a email with the heading of “Miracles’ on Tuesday, Floy, founder and owner of Heartwood, a long established health and wellness collective in the neighborhood, informed supporters that “while the outcome of last night’s meeting was not what we had hoped, the response to the meeting has been amazing.”
“Before we even left last night the support came flooding in from all over Evanston Chicago and the North Shore and we have raised over $100,000 for the project,” she wrote.
“A group of neighbors are creating a Go Fund me page which will be live soon and based on all of this the bank has approved our loan to move forward to purchase the building,” she said. “We have achieved this by scaling the project back while still retaining the community third space and of course the delicious Creole food. At the close of the Council meeting we thought that we had lost the project but with such beautiful strong community support we are moving forward. Thank you for being a part of this miracle.”
In a follow-up text to Evanstonscribe.com today, Floy wrote that “at the close of the Council meeting we thought that the project would not go forward but with the beauty and power of grassroots community support and organizing we are continuing to move forward. It is sad that the majority of the Council does not value this local minority woman-owned business but the miracle is that our neighbors and the greater community are stepping up where the Council chose not to. The building will be a Heartwood project now and we welcome Gabi and Byron as an integral part of the Heartwood community and we are here to support their vision.”