The downtown property that houses Evanston 1st Liquors, 1019 Davis St., is listed for sale with a $2.37 million asking price, according to real estate broker Horvath & Tremblay.
Online listings posted on March 27 tout the property as “extremely well positioned” in downtown to provide “a built-in customer base” for the single retail tenant. The liquor store has more than two years left on its 15-year lease with built-in annual rent increases, making it “an attractive investment for the passive investor,” according to the broker’s offering memorandum.
The current owner, investor Sarju Nair, of Lincolnwood, bought the property in 1999; the RoundTable could not reach Nair for comment. A store employee told the RoundTable Tuesday afternoon that the pending change in ownership isn’t expected to affect the store’s long-term presence.
As its name suggests, Evanston 1st Liquors was the city’s first packaged liquor store when it opened in 1984 and faced no competition until an Osco Drug opened nearby a few years later.
Evanston held out as a temperance city until 1972, when City Council created liquor licenses for on-site consumption at downtown hotels and restaurants. The city gradually loosened these restrictions and created new license types over the following decades; though the city still taxes liquor sales at 6%, a much higher rate than Chicago and other neighboring suburbs.
New license type in limbo
One of those new license types appears to be in legislative limbo, however, as the business proposing it has closed before it could be approved.
On March 15, the city’s Liquor Control Review Board recommended creating a new Class L-3 license type for Foxtrot, a Chicago-based cafe and convenience store chain that sold both on-site and packaged alcohol. Vice President of Development Jason DaPisa told board members the company planned to open its first suburban location in Evanston in September.
City Council voted to introduce the Class L-3 ordinance on March 25 and is scheduled to vote on final approval April 29. The ordinance no longer has an interested party, however, as Foxtrot suddenly closed all 33 existing locations across Chicago, Dallas, Austin and Washington, D.C., on Tuesday.
Mayor Daniel Biss, whose duties include serving as the city’s liquor commissioner, wrote to the RoundTable that the city learned of Foxtrot’s closures at the same time as the public through media reports.
“It’s disappointing, but we hope that a new tenant will be announced soon,” Biss wrote.
Emails released via FOIA and obtained by the RoundTable show Foxtrot was in conversations with with Annie Coakley, formerly the executive director of Downtown Evanston, about a potential Evanston expansion as early as January 2023. The company initially looked at filling the spaces left by Cinnaholic and Clarke’s Off Campus at the corner of Sherman Avenue and Davis Street, but by May 2023 had zeroed in on space in the redeveloping Varsity Theater building, 1706 Sherman Ave.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include more information about the planned Foxtrot location in Evanston.