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Chicago Grill Becomes The Crimson Cafe

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A young couple from the local hospitality industry who have been working in the trade for a number of years will soon crank open a place of their own after sealing the deal over the weekend to purchase the Chicago Grill from Dino Tripodis of St. Joseph. By the Memorial Day Weekend, they hope to re-open a full service restaurant they will call The Crimson Cafe.

For the past five years or so Mindy Bailon has been a Supervisor at the Cracker Barrel Restaurant in Stevensville, while her husband Arturo Bailon has been a Kitchen Manager for The Getaway on Red Arrow Highway in Bridgman. Now, they will work the trade under the same roof as the new owners of what will soon be the former Chicago Grill at Red Arrow and Glenlord between St. Joseph and Stevensville.

Dino tells me they closed the deal late Saturday, and the Bailons are targeting a re-opening day of May 23rd, just in time to kick off the summer season in Michigan's Great Southwest. 

The Crimson Cafe will be a full-service diner serving breakfast, lunch and dinner with both indoor and outdoor seating at the diner. The Chicago Grill just opened last year for its first season, and was closed from January 1st until April 1st while Tripodis enjoyed a winter sabbatical to visit family and friends in his homeland of Greece. He had just re-opened for the new season a month ago when the Bailons indicated a strong interest in acquiring the business and Dino says he really liked them a lot, knew they had aspirations of creating their own business venture after plying the trade for several years as employees, and it just made sense.

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A few changes will have to be made to change from the quick service diner that Dino had run to a full-service venture, but the equipment is still very new having just been installed last year and they should be able to convert the property for their needs with a fairly rapid turn around.

As for Dino, he's playing things close to the vest, telling me, "I'm working on a couple of things that I'm not at liberty to discuss at this point," however he still holds the dream of returning his oft-revered and frequently missed Dino's Restaurant brand from his long service in the Southtown neighborhood of St. Joseph until he sold the aging building to Mike Jones and his Buffalo Wild Wings franchise a couple of years ago, and Jones demolished the building on Niles Avenue across from Lambrecht's Liquors to make way for the new wing restaurant.

Tripodis has been ever vigilant in his bid to acquire space somewhere along the Niles Avenue corridor not too far from his old stomping grounds in order to return the Dino's brand to his long-time faithful customers. 

Essentially, we'll just have to wait it out to see what Dino's working on next, but he likely has some fresh capital to work with following the sale of The Chicago Grill. Stay tuned for more…and get ready to welcome the new Crimson Cafe at 4074 Red Arrow Highway in Stevensville. 

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