Geneva’s Little Owl, Old Towne Pub sites face setback as restaurant plans fall through

In 2025, KC Gulbro, owner and chef at the FoxFire restaurant in Geneva, came forward with plans to fill both the empty Little Owl and Old Towne Pub sites on State Street.

This was an exciting turn of events, considering Gulbro’s reputation as a chef and a Geneva downtown business owner.

It was also a positive momentum boost for Gulbro in that his father had recently passed away and his Copper Fox restaurant in Dodson Place along Third Street had closed.

He was quick to get work started on both sites, looking to create a 9 Vixens “clean eating” restaurant in the Little Owl site at 101 W. State St. and a Johnny Foxes Restaurant in the former Old Towne Pub at 201 N. State St.

Gulbro was working with investor Dean White of Peerless Fencing on the 9 Vixens project, and had other plans in seeking to hire a chef well-versed in food preparation that avoids the nine most common allergens in food.

After the initial push, including interior work at Little Owl by contractor Dennis Kintop, who posted a series of videos on social media to monitor progress, things went quiet.

Work stopped a month or two ago, it seems, and the “For Lease” signs went back up at both sites. Kintop was the hired contractor for both, while Richard Williams is part of a group that owns the Old Towne building.

Gulbro did not respond to phone calls or emails when seeking information about what happened to derail his plans, or whether he may yet be a potential renter at one of the sites.

For now, the Little Owl building has been on a two-year cycle of sorts, seemingly on track for redevelopment, then suddenly going back to square one.

The Arbizzani family in Geneva sold the historic Little Owl and adjoining Flagstone to Nick Smith of the Karas Restaurant Group in 2019.

After starting some rehab to the building, Karas, as the Republic Kitchen Bar Group, backed out in 2021 because, in part, the power grid (at that time) in the 182-year-old building was not able to handle the big ovens and dishwashers it planned for the site. The other part of the withdrawal had to do with the COVID pandemic.

Two years later, Geneva’s economic development director Cathleen Tymoszenko was telling city officials there was a “delicate deal” unfolding with a potential suitor proposing a Tapville Social-Geneva bar and restaurant.

It was so delicate, in fact, the city agreed to use grant and tax rebate money to help fix the building and keep the Tapville project moving forward.

The building needed plenty of outside work and the city viewed it as work needed to restore a historic site. Plus, Tapville did not need the type of power Republic was seeking.

In the meantime, the city upgraded the electricity as part of significant interior and exterior renovations at Little Owl.

The Little Owl renovations were recognized by a City of Geneva Preservation Award in May, supported with a $138,000 grant from the city.

Neil Johnson of Landmark Commercial Real Estate confirmed his company posted the “For Lease” sign in the Old Towne Pub building, but has not listed the building. He was continuing to talk to the ownership group, and felt the site could be officially listed this week.

The Little Owl site, now handled through Fortino Real Estate Group of Naperville, is already listed as available.

Regardless of what has caused investor pullout in the past, at some point these prime downtown buildings should speak for themselves.

They have proven records of being popular restaurant/bar locations in the past, which should trigger new phone calls — and hopefully a better ending for investors, restaurant owners and diners.

Their ‘Underground’ role

The “hits” just keep on coming for the St. Charles History Museum and archivist Eric Krupa.

Those hits unfold when Krupa has news to share about his role on the Illinois Network to Freedom and the extensive work on citing local Underground Railroad sites and stories.

Most recently, he noted that the Batavia family home of the Rev. John and Lucinda Cross has been added to a national list of Underground Railroad sites, verified through the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom.

Krupa says the “inconspicuous home” at the corner of Harrison and Elm streets in Batavia played a major role in the history of the Underground Railroad ushering enslaved people into freedom.

Krupa’s research found that John Cross was responsible for connecting the first continuously operating Underground Railroad Network, from the western boundaries of Illinois to Canada. This work places Cross at the heart of a much larger operation, Krupa said, which not only changed how Freedom Seekers escaped from enslavement, but also how freedom seeking became perceived historically.

Cross was purposefully selected to travel from New York to Illinois, Krupa discovered, to “connect a covert network of radical abolitionists.”

This network was designed to help Freedom Seekers escape from the westernmost slave states, and was a collaborative effort between Black, white, and Indigenous abolitionists.

During his journey to Illinois, Cross successfully recruited more like-minded individuals, establishing a web of friendly operatives that reached across the Midwest, Krupa added.

Krupa, a Batavia resident, got assistance from the Batavia Depot Museum, the current homeowner, the National Park Service, and others, in taking on the extensive research to confirm the site’s significance.

Parks, cars and safety

One of our neighbors had a good idea in reaching out to our alderman in Geneva about the potential danger along Bent Tree Drive when Geneva Youth Baseball games are being played at Eaglebrook Park.

Cars are lined up on Bent Tree, often along the entirety of the park and to where Eldorado Drive meets with Bent Tree just north of the ball field. The designated parking lines go a bit too far toward the corner, and a sign posted at that corner about no parking for large trucks seems odd.

Drivers trying to turn right or left off Eldorado during games find themselves in a tricky spot, as there is no way they can fully see traffic heading north.

The parked cars and some bushes and trees at that corner, and the angle of the street, make it the kind of hazard we used to see decades ago in a driver’s education class video.

It was hoped that the alderman, after pointing out the concern to the police, might get some action that would at least result in a sign prohibiting parking of at least four or five car lengths before that corner.

This one is in our neighborhood, but it’s not likely the only example of this sort of thing in the Tri-Cities around busy neighborhood parks.

Regardless, we can all remain super careful this summer driving around areas in which baseball or soccer games are in full swing at a neighborhood park.

Foundation keeps on giving

The annual report for the Community Foundation of the Fox River Valley tells us the nearly 80-year-old organization issued more than $9.8 million in grants and scholarships to benefit the residents of Aurora, Kane and Kendall counties.

The organization reported that more than $3.4 million, a record, was distributed in scholarships to 569 area students ages 14 to 53 to use over the next four years.

• dheun@sbcglobal.net