New restaurant Sugar opens in Peoria's Warehouse District
The Warehouse District has its first attraction and Downtown Peoria has a restaurant with a wood burning oven, the first of its kind in central Illinois.
The restaurant is called Sugar, another Travis Mohlenbrink production whose other area restaurants carry "condimentary" names like Cracked Pepper and Salt.
The building at 826 SW Adams St. is owned by Dennis Slape who's been focused on efforts to recreate the Warehouse District, a section of Downtown Peoria slated for restoration for years that's only now beginning to bear fruit - or at least, sugar.
"I knew Travis from Numero," said Slape, referring to the pocket-sized monthly magazine he published for seven years until discontinuing the publication earlier this year.
"I thought it was best to leave on a note of quality instead of finding ways to get by and reducing staff," said Slape, noting that a fall-off in advertising dictated the move.
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A professional photographer whose office is in the building next door to Sugar, Slape has been busy developing other ideas.
"(Assistant city manager) Chris Setti, (Peoria City Council members) Tim Riggenbach and Ryan Spain put us together," said Slape of the collaboration with Mohlenbrink to make a restaurant the district's pioneer project.
It's a case of two people with a passion. "His passion is to redevelop some of those buildings down there," Mohlenbrink said of Slape.
Mohlenbrink's passion, on the other hand, is to offer up interesting food in a unique setting. "Eighty percent of what we serve comes through the oven," he said, referring to kitchen apparatus shipped from Italy.
Make no mistake, this oven gives off heat - up to 1,000 degrees when going full blast. That means you best be careful, said general manager Lowell Levene-Sims. "Items like chicken wings (one of Sugar's specialties along with the oven-fired pizza) have to be watched carefully," he said.
But Mohlenbrink points out other aspects of the restaurant that seats up to 80 people. "The LED lighting in here uses less energy than a single 100 watt light bulb," he said. In fact, when certified, Sugar will be the only green restaurant in the state outside of Chicago, said Mohlenbrink.
Despite all the place's positives, Mohlenbrink is a businessman who knows it takes customers to succeed. "It's hard enough to run a restaurant in a good location, let alone in an up-and-coming place," he said.
But Slape is counting on that up-and-coming place to keep on coming. "We're already working on another project," he said, promising details when the deal is done.
Slape is aware that the Warehouse District has been on the city's to-do list for a long time. "The process (of development) is long and people want immediate gratification," he said.
Sitting behind huge 10 x 21 foot windows he installed in the building for Sugar, Slape looks across to the as-yet-undeveloped side of Adams Street, acknowledging some of the treasures of the past contained in the closed buildings there: an old bowling alley that remains intact and what once was a large indoor archery range.
"I don't see why we can't coexist," he said of businesses that operate in the district at present. "Light industrial (firms) can operate here along with new attractions," said Slape, adding that a neighboring welding company helped with the installation of the building's windows.
Down the street a little further, he spies a long-standing area attraction. "In the summer, we have the ballfield," he said, referring to Dozer Park.
"The potential is here and we're open to ideas," said Slape.
Turning his gaze southwards at the many blocks of Peoria's industrial past, he added, "The beauty of the Warehouse District is that there's really no limit on how far we could go."
Steve Tarter can be reached at 686-3260 or starter@pjstar.com. Follow his blog, Minding Business, on pjstar.com and follow him on Twitter @SteveTarter
