Campton Hills whets appetite for taste of Italy
Campton Hills lost its barbecue when Hopper's recently shut its doors, but it's about to trade that in for a taste of Italy.
Joseph Milano Jr. hopes that those who visit his restaurant this spring will walk away raving about the food, particularly the Italian sausage gravy.
Milano has a target of May 1 for opening Milano's Ristorante Italiano and Banquets at the 40W188 Campton Crossing location that formerly housed Hopper's Barbecue.
While Italian family "home-cooked" recipes will be the mainstay at this restaurant, Milano wants to mix things up enough to keep his patrons coming back.
"I'm going to have special nights, like Mexican Night and Sushi Night, just to do some different things," said Milano, a Campton Hills resident who has operated restaurants in the past, but is dipping his toe into the world of ownership for the first time with Milano's.
"I was the general manager at Angelo's in Elmhurst," said Milano, who was raised in Chicago and is excited about bringing some of the zest of his Italian upbringing to the dinner tables at his new restaurant.
Milano's will occupy the entire dining and kitchen area of the former Hopper's, but will also occupy the suite next to it for use as the banquet facility.
"This is going to be a family restaurant, and I think people will be talking about that sausage gravy, an Italian red sauce, when they leave here," Milano said with a confident smile of a man who knows his Italian red sauce.
The restaurant is located off Route 64 and LaFox Road in the Campton Crossing retail district.
Cornering that market: It's been a fairly prominent "corner location" for a retail business because its sign tends to stand out more so than the other stores in this strip center on the east side of St. Charles.
It's the corner spot of Foxboro Plaza, a location that housed the late Skott Zimmerman's popular Midwest Golf shop for several years, and then an LA Tan operation.
Now, the word "Dance" graces that corner spot at 2400 E. Main St. in Suites B and D, as Beth Fowler's Dance Studio is preparing to move into that location early next month right next to LA Tan.
Fowler's Dance Studio currently rents space at 3720 Illinois Ave. in the complex east of Kirk Road called the St. Charles Commons. The St. Charles location represents Fowler's second studio, as she has long operated one in Genoa.
The move to Foxboro will allow the studio to have a more prominent retail setting with more exposure, particularly from that Dance sign being easily noticed along Main Street.
The studio will offer several dance disciplines, as Fowler looks to continue the type of instruction that has landed students in prominent dance troupes as members of the Luv-a-Bulls dance team or with dance scholarships at area universities.
Information about the new location is available at (630) 549-0198 or (815) 784-5658.
Seeking Miguel: Readers Dave and Ann Erickson had been on vacation and returned to find that one of their favorite Mexican restaurants in town, Miguel's on the Fox, had vacated its spot at 109 W. Main St. in St. Charles.
It was mentioned in my column recently that McNally's Irish Pub would be taking over that location and would have outdoor dining in the First Street Plaza.
But the Ericksons wanted to know if Miguel's was reopening somewhere else in the Tri-Cities or if the family that operated it was going to work at another restaurant. The city's economic development department did not have any more information about the plans of the Miguel's owners.
If anyone else has information they'd like to pass along, send me an e-mail and we'll share the news.
Those special dinners: Reader Liz Ryan sent an e-mail to remind me that St. Charles Episcopal Church members Matt Rhead and Joe Ryan and their friends have been hosting "Two Guys and Free Spaghetti" monthly dinners for the past 11 months.
She enjoyed the item in last Sunday's column about the free dinners at Geneva United Methodist Church on the third Tuesdays of the month, and wanted readers to know that another church is on board with caring people offering a needed service to the community.
The fellowship hall at St. Charles Episcopal, 994 N. Fifth Ave., becomes an Italian banquet hall from 5 to 7 p.m. the last Sunday of each month for these free meals.
Turn stuff off: If we're really getting more "green" with our habits, then we'll want to observe Earth Hour on Saturday night, March 27. That means all you have to do to participate at 8:30 p.m. is turn off any lights you don't need, turn off computer monitors and do without the TV if you can for one hour.
In general, the conservation experts tell us that it's a good idea to unplug stuff you don't use all of the time. A good place to start unplugging stuff is the bedrooms of kids who are off to college and not even home.
At the very least, turn things off or keep them dim in your house for an hour on Saturday night.
That's a good pie: Daily Herald reporter Susan Sarkauskas tells me that the new Fox's on the River restaurant in Batavia that I have mentioned in previous columns apparently has "excellent veggie pizza."
She bases her assessment on the pizza pies that owner Frank Fox sent to a recent Batavia City Council meeting for city officials and others in attendance to enjoy.
dheun@sbcglobal.net