Shuttered Le Francais on auction block; $900,000 opening bid
The once wildly popular Wheeling-based Le Francais restaurant, which featured the late chef Jean Banchet, is on the auction block.
Chicago-based SVN AuctionWorks has been hosting an online auction, which started Wednesday and will continue through Friday, that includes the now defunct Le Francais and other local properties.
Besides the land and restaurant, at 269 N. Milwaukee Ave., all the furniture, fixtures, equipment and artifacts inside are also included in the sale.
"When you walk inside you can see that all the china and silverware are set on the tables, the same as the last day when they closed," about eight years ago, said SVN AuctionWorks President Diana Peterson. "It's all still there, everything you can imagine from this high-end restaurant."
The 4,300-square-foot restaurant is on 1.7 acres and had an opening bid of $900,000. Banchet, who died in 2013, designed the kitchen that includes a Christofle cheese cart, European crystal as well as silver and china hand-picked by Banchet's wife, Doris. All the pots and pans are ready and a signed framed original menu and photos of the couple are still on the wall, Peterson said.
Banchet was born in Lyon, France, and was credited with bringing fine dining to the Chicago area. He came to the United States to work for Hugh Hefner when the Playboy Club of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, opened in 1968. A few years later, Banchet opened Le Francais, a French country inn restaurant that, at one time, received accolades from chefs Julia child and Jacques Pepin. Banchet and his wife had lived next to the restaurant until they retired and moved to Jupiter, Florida. He then died at 72 in 2013 after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
Current owner Michael Moran became a fan of Le Francais in 1973.
"I went in and had this incredible meal and just kept coming back, and then I wound up owning it in 2003," Moran said.
The restaurant became so popular that it often took up to two months to get a reservation, he said. But a tough economy and a change in the restaurant industry soon took its toll. When the restaurant closed in 2009, they kept everything in its place and all the tables were set for the next owner.
"It was quietly on the market for a while, and I was secretly hoping for another Frenchman or an American who loved to cook French food would come along, but it didn't occur," he said.
Other area properties that SVN AuctionWorks will auction through the end of the year include:
A 10,600-square-foot bank-owned restaurant in Mount Prospect previously operated by Bogies Ale House, at 303 E. Kensington Road. Minimum bid is $950,000.
A .7-acre property that was previously occupied by an oil company. The fueling station includes an adjacent 1,000-square-foot building and a 7,600-square-foot building with warehouse space.
Full leased Wheaton Shopping Center, an approximately 13,537-square-foot, one-story shopping center with seven tenants. The multi-tenant retail building set on 1.42 acres has a suggested opening bid of $1,900,000.
A former Pet Supplies Plus store at 915 E. Roosevelt Road in Wheaton is listed with a suggested opening bid of $780,000.
Two office condos in St. Charles, two bank-owned retailers in a Hanover Park strip center, day care centers in Schaumburg and Orland Park, and vacant commercial land parcels in Mundelein and Port Barrington.