We’re excited to share this Q&A with Jacques Shalo of Kribi Coffee. Jacques recently became the owner of the long-established bakery Sugar Fixé, 119 N. Marion St., in the Downtown Oak Park Business District.

You’ve continued to invest in Oak Park businesses, why do you think Oak Park is a good bet? (JS): Oak Park is home. We give a lot of credit to the Village and the supportive, engaging community in Oak Park and in the surrounding areas. We’ve lived here for 37 years and staying close to home was important to us and our business. We could not have found a better area to expand our businesses and wouldn’t want to do what we are doing anywhere else.

What are your current and future plans for this newly acquired bakery, currently named Sugar Fixé? (JS): We are fortunate to be able to partner with one of the best chefs and bakers from the original Bonjour Bakery location in Hyde Park. Our new baker has a very loyal following from his previous years of work and now he will be creating delicious baked goods for our expanding Kribi stores. We are excited to be able to showcase his work and to supply all of our stores with elevated baked goods for our customers.

What do you think will set you apart from other bakeries in the area? (JS): The quality of work we produce is quite high. Quality is absolutely key. The emphasis of pairing coffee with pastries, in a thoughtful manner, will set us apart from everyone else.

Community is clearly important to you based off your numerous initiatives with partners such as Beyond Hunger, Center on Halstead, etc. How will that translate over to your work at this bakery? (JS): Our community initiatives and social impact are extremely important to us. We are still thinking through how the bakery will be involved, but we have some programs we are looking into, like pastry donations and we would eventually like to help provide assistance to entities outside of the community like the Filmore Center in Chicago.

Tell us something Oak Park residents may not know about your business. (JS): Overall, that we roast our coffee fresh. It is done daily, or sometimes within minutes at all of our stores. People always ask me why our coffee tastes so good and different from others. The answer is that our coffee isn’t bitter. We think that people recognize the difference but may not know that it is due to the way we roast the beans. Fresh roasting is the key to great taste. Another thing people may not know is how we source our coffee. It comes from specific farmers and we have a family farm that we source from as well.

Frank Heitzman of Heitzman Architects, owner of the commercial building at 111 N. Marion St., applied for and received a $5,000 C-FIP grant to assist with the expense of the beautiful external façade improvement that includes new brick, new windows, lighting and copper embellishments. The Village appreciates this investment in this important commercial property located in the Downtown Oak Park (DTOP) Business District.

The Village’s successful C-FIP grant program helped to reinvigorate the façades of nine commercial businesses in 2024, matching the program's previous record for most projects completed in a year. Over the past seven years, this grant program has helped fund 36 commercial façade improvements, with $175,491 paid out in grant assistance for improvements totaling $760,702.

The C-FIP program assists local commercial business or property owners with improvements like new signage, awnings, lighting, windows, doors, tuckpointing, etc. For more information, contact Cameron Davis at 708.358.5421 or cdavis@oak-park.us. 

New restaurant owners Gabriel Nunez and Victor Vazquez have secured a positive recommendation from the Village’s Liquor Control Review Board for a Class B-1 license for their new restaurant, Mira Social, to be located at 1105 Pleasant St. at the northeast corner of the new Porter Development. The Village Board will consider the LCRB’s recommendation on January 28. Remodeling plans are being developed for this current white box space. We are excited to welcome Mr. Nunez and Mr. Vazquez to the Oak Park business community for a planned 2025 opening.

The Village is sad to acknowledge the upcoming closure of the beloved Munch Restaurant at 104 N. Marion St. Restaurant management is retiring and we wish them and the entire staff the very best. Thank you to the Munch team for providing wonderful vegan cuisine to loyal customers for so many years.

Village and Oak Park River Forest Chamber  representatives congratulated BodyBar Pilates owner Amanda Jones and her team at their new business ribbon cutting last week. This beautiful and spacious Pilates business is located at 106 N. Maple Ave., south of the Target store. Check out what this new business has to offer on its website. 

At the northwest corner of Austin Boulevard and Roosevelt Road, developers of Driven Car Wash have been busy demolishing the former bank building and performing site clearing work, as pictured. Plans include an enclosed car wash on the site, to be completed in 2025. For more information, go to www.drivencarwash.com where Oak Park is listed as a future site.