Isacco restaurant moving to First Street in St. Charles

When you spend a fair amount of time in a certain part of your community, it usually equates to being your favorite spot in the area.

In spending a fair amount of time recently in the Third and Cedar streets area of St. Charles, it reminded us quite a bit is going on there.

Isacco Vitali plans to move his IsAcco restaurant from the Cedar Street location in what he is calling a "good sizing" move to a spot in the First Street Plaza where O' Sole Mio most recently moved out.

Vitali said his final night at the Cedar Street restaurant was Aug. 22.

"I'm looking forward to a little smaller location and intend to keep serving my Italian dishes," Vitali said.

He plans to open his new spot sometime in November, as long as things move along smoothly with the city.

But Taste of the Himalayas remains in the Cedar and Third area, along with the new Abby's Breakfast and Lunch and the Filling Station. When you mix in Alibi, Dawn's Beach Hut, Alley 64 (outdoor rear seating) and the Beehive all being nearby, this chunk of city real estate should be drawing folks downtown.

There are plenty of other areas, maybe not even necessarily restaurants or taverns, drawing our attention.

Which begs the question: What is your favorite local area? Or, put another way, where do you spend much of your fun time?

Is it in a certain area of our downtowns? Is it in a park district or forest preserve area?

Send me a note (email address at the end of this column) and tell me about your favorite places. We'll share some of those, and maybe we'll even learn about some new spots.

Right in the middle

We may have plenty of favorite places right here in the Tri-Cities, but that doesn't mean we don't like getting out and about on occasion.

With school back on the calendar, getting away for a vacation may no longer be on the priority list for most families.

Autumn months are best for scoping out areas close to us.

Spending a few days in the Milwaukee and Lake Geneva regions illustrated that living in the Tri-Cities puts us in a perfect location for these short getaways.

We can get to downtown Chicago in about an hour, and we can do the same to Lake Geneva, give or take 15 minutes.

You can't leave Starved Rock or Matthiessen state parks out of this equation. They are only an hour-and-a-half south of us.

The best one might be a couple of hours away, and that's Galena Territory. A few days on the lake, some swimming and golfing never hurt anyone in this historic and scenic part of our state.

Sidewalk mystery

This is a question someone who has been around Geneva a lot longer than I may have to chime in on. It qualifies as one of those mysteries of life.

Considering how many people walk to the train station along Cheever Avenue in Geneva, and how many others, including children and pets, walk around that neighborhood, why has the city never put a complete sidewalk on each side of that street? Both sides have the sidewalks come to a stop in certain areas.

Fun at RiverEdge

Our first venture to RiverEdge Park in Aurora for a concert gets high marks, except for the parking situation. But that was a bad side effect of the fact that Earth, Wind and Fire packed the 8,500-seat Broadway Street venue with fans.

From what I was told, that was at least 2,000 more than the site generally draws for concerts. This very popular band, of course, delivered a memorable show.

The mass of humanity made getting to the food vendors and bathroom facilities a challenge.

Overall, this place is set up nicely for bringing lawn chairs to an outdoor show. It has an orderly system for setting up chairs, plenty of park personnel helping people get situated, and plenty of police for keeping things orderly. Planners in Aurora got a lot right in developing this site.

We parked in an odd parking lot off the beaten path because the main sites were full even two hours before the show. It wasn't the most pleasant experience returning to the lot to see cars jammed in every which way right to the edge of the driveways we were supposed to use to get out.

However, good old Yankee ingenuity somehow went to work and, even though we were buried in the back of the lot, some cars near us found a way to slide out through an alley. After some tricky maneuvering that reminded me of leaving a drive-in movie in the old days, we were on our way.

Any way you slice it, this is an awesome place for outdoor concerts when the weather cooperates.

Sticker searches

It's hard to remember which stores sell refuse stickers for Geneva and which ones don't. It must be the same for residents in other towns using the sticker system. Which gets me to thinking. In this age of supposed ease and convenience, how is there not an online option to purchase stickers and have them mailed to you? I'd pay a little extra for such a service.

How can this be?

It borders on unconscionable, but it's true. I have not had a summer treat at any of our area Dairy Queens, at the Kilwins, Graham's or Frozen Yogurt in downtown Geneva, at Colonial or Kimmer's in St. Charles or the Creamery in Batavia.

Normally, I would have hit all of the above by now, probably more than once.

Something is very much amiss. I'm not sure how this could happen, but a full-blown investigation is pending.

dheun@sbcglobal.net