Moveable Gourmet, a cafe and catering company, plans to open within the next two weeks at 118 N. Marion St., about eight months later than the owners had hoped.
In December 2005, Carol Buckantz and her business partner, Erik Ruminski, signed a contract to lease the storefront in the middle of the Marion Street mall. Buckantz knew Mike Fox, who owns the space, from the Wyndham Drake in Oak Brook. The Fox family recently bought the hotel where Buckantz was the executive chef.
Moveable Gourmet encountered “more than typical” delays in getting their permits from the Village of Oak Park-three and a half months, to be exact-but the owners still hoped to open by the end of July 2006, Buckantz said.
But permit delays were nothing compared to what lay ahead.
Construction on the build-out of the space slowed down. Then it stopped. That’s about when the project’s general contractor left, never to return, having done just 40 percent of the work. Buckantz said she and Ruminski lost $160,000.
“This place was a vanilla box when he left,” Buckantz said from inside the storefront, which now has sage green walls, refrigerated display cases and room for a few tables up front. “It was all Erik’s and my savings. It really, really sucked that this happened to us.”
They had some money left, which had been earmarked for finishing the job. So they got some loans and kept building, serving as their own general contractor.
“There was no turning back,” Buckantz said. “We knew we couldn’t say, ‘Forget it.'”
Throughout the delays, the owners have continued their catering operation, working out of a supplier’s kitchen-and their home kitchens when necessary-to build word-of-mouth support. Catering is expected to be about 70 percent of Moveable Gourmet’s business in days ahead, with the cafe and “how-to”-themed cooking classes to supplement.
“We didn’t want to concentrate on just one thing,” Buckantz said. They will concentrate on catering, hoping to be “the premier caterer” in the area, but they also want to be the kind of place people pop in to ask how to cook their Thanksgiving turkey, she said.
The cafe will serve meals from morning to night, with coffee, pastries and yogurt parfaits to go in the morning, and daily meals for dinner. The cafe boasts a large sandwich and salad lunch menu, too.
All of the items are designed to travel in hopes of taking advantage of its proximity to the nearby CTA and Metra station.
“[Our cuisine’s] moveable. I guess that’s why it’s in our name,” Buckantz said.
The caterers can cook globally, too, offering everything from contemporary American cuisine to French, Italian and Asian food.
“We do everything from soup to nuts,” she said. They’ll also take care of flowers, linens and other details of party planning.
Buckantz said they picked Oak Park because Ruminski lives here, and she used to. “I always thought this would be a great area,” she said.
After a planned mall renovation, Moveable Gourmet’s storefront will be framed by a canopy planned for the Marion/Westgate intersection, making the shop a focal point from Westgate.
“At first I didn’t think [the project] was going to be a great idea,” she said, especially given that the construction would happen while they were trying to build the business. “But I think it will be very good long-term.”
CONTACT: dcarter@wjinc.com