Buffalo Grove Golf Course restaurant to reopen with new name, menu

The Buffalo Grove Golf Course's restaurant is taking a new approach.

The Wild Buffalo, 48 Raupp Blvd, will reopen in June as Sal and Tony's Italian Restaurant.

Restaurant operators announced the change on Facebook, pledging a new interior design and casual dining atmosphere for families, featuring "delicious Italian and American food, a full-service bar with flat screens and an extended patio for golfers and a private gaming area."

Sal Cardone, whose Cardone Restaurant Group won a competition to bring the Wild Buffalo to the golf course in 2016, will be one of the restaurateurs behind Sal & Tony's. Cardone, a Buffalo Grove High School alumnus and owner of Mambo Italiano restaurant in Mundelein, is partnering with Tony Fontanini, a Stevenson High School alumnus.

The village board recently voted to revise the five-year lease with the Wild Buffalo restaurant, waiving as much as $42,000 in outstanding rent from 2020 and reducing the monthly rent from $4,500 to $1,000 for the first three months of 2021.

Rent will revert to $4,500 when the restaurant returns to full operation.

The restaurant has been closed since November, and before that was operating with limited capacity because of the pandemic.