Petersen’s Ice Cream, an institution in Oak Park for over 85 years, is shutting down the restaurant side of its business and putting the space up for rent.
According to a statement released by owner Daryl Bartelson last week, the longtime Chicago Avenue business, scooping out ice cream in Oak Park since 1919, will keep the restaurant half of the site open “as long at is economically possible or until a new business fills its space.”
The restaurant portion of Petersen’s opened in 1931. Bartelson and his family have attempted to invest funds into the restaurant since they bought the business five years ago, but expenses have increased at an insurmountable rate over the years. High rent, a lack of parking, increasing costs of ice cream ingredients, rising interest rates and increased ice cream competition in Oak Park all contributed to the restaurant’s struggles.
Dodging the large shadow cast by the famous ice cream was also a problem for the restaurant.
“When you have the best ice cream, even though you’ve got wonderful homemade food, whatever you add to it becomes a shadow behind the ice cream,” Bartelson said. “With Petersen’s, the first thing people say after the name is ‘ice cream,’ and it’s hard to get past that.”
The owner said the restaurant portion probably should have been closed earlier, but as a 35-year resident of Oak Park and a fan of Petersen’s, he became emotionally invested in trying to keep the restaurant afloat despite the odds against it.
Bartelson added liquor to the restaurant menu as a last resort, and the move did increase profits, but not enough to offset the other expenses.
In general, he said, running a family business just isn’t as easy at it used to be. Competition is fierce, and it’s difficult to compete with the mass advertising and other advantages corporate businesses possess.
“That’s why there’s very few of us left,” Bartelson said about family businesses. “It’s a lot tougher on a family business than people realize.”
The owner then made the choice to keep the Sweet Shoppe portion of Petersen’s open to focus the business’s efforts on its core asset: ice cream, along with handcrafted cakes, pies, double-dipped chocolate bars, cocoas, teas and coffees.
The restaurant portion of Petersen’s will probably stay open through this Sunday, and maybe two or three weeks after that, according to Bartelson. It all depends on “how fast the door is swinging open.”
“We appreciate the support and love we have received from our loyal customers and employees throughout the years,” Bartelson said. “We really wanted to give people a chance to experience Petersen’s one more time before it becomes whatever it is in the future.”
-Marty Stempniak
Good call
Vineyard Christian Fellowship Church on Jackson Boulevard in Oak Park may have experienced a setback (so to speak) in its hopes to expand its physical facility, but that hasn’t dampened its spiritual facilities. Members of the church were out in force in Downtown Oak Park just before Christmas handing out package tape to harried last-minute shoppers who no doubt had last-minute gift-wrapping to look forward to. Vineyard does this sort of thing periodically-they handed out chocolate hearts around Valentine’s Day last year and bottled water during the summer heat wave. It’s outreach with a touch of ministry. They also hand out cards with the church’s contact info and a smiley face with the message: “This is our simple way of saying that God loves you-no strings attached.” Of all their giveaways, package tape just before Christmas, was a stroke of brilliance.
Acres of parkland?
The “Regency Club,” one of Oak Park’s soon-to-be downtown residential developments, has been advertising its enticements on the windows of its display office at 1038 Lake St. Among the panels is one that promises “acres of parkland for your own backyard.” We did a doubletake since at first glance, the old Bank One parking lot where the new development is going up-just north of what is now Chase Bank (Marion and Lake)-isn’t exactly flush with green space. But leapfrog the Sanctuary condo building directly to the east, and one comes upon Austin Gardens, which, according to our trusty Answer Book community guide, consists of 3.64 acres, which is (sort of) in their backyard if one is willing to stretch the notion.
Then again, a good long block to the west and across Harlem is the Cook County Forest Preserve District Headquarters, which includes green space leased to the Village of River Forest, adding to the accessible park acreage. And only a short walk of a few blocks to the south brings one to Mills Park, which adds another 4.43 acres of green space.
So, sure enough, the new cliffdwellers of downtown Oak Park have a fair amount of parkland close by.
One of the other panels, on the other hand, cites “dozens of restaurants at your doorstep.”
Dozens?
Touch-screen problems prevalent
The League of Women Voters’ Poll Watchers Report states that “about a third” of Oak Park precincts had problems with their touch-screen voting machines, “generally short in duration and often due to voting cards jamming and difficulties in changing the paper rolls which enable the voter to verify how he/she has cast [his or] her ballot.”
The report states that there were longer-term problems, too, as well as noting some praise for the touch-screen machines.