Foxtrot's customers, staff celebrate reopening of Gold Coast store

In April, Bahar Kudarzi took her usual walk from her Gold Coast apartment to Foxtrot for coffee and a place to study. When its doors were locked, and the place was closed, she headed up to the Old Town location only to find it also shut down.

Five months later, she was back at her daily grind on Thursday enjoying a drink on the patio as Foxtrot's Gold Coast store celebrated its grand reopening.

"I came up here just for the Foxtrot opening," joked Kudarzi's boyfriend, Shawn Varela, who lives in Florida. "No joke though, we've been looking forward to this."

Last spring, Foxtrot fans as well as staff were shocked by the grocery and cafe chain's abrupt closing, along with high-end supermarket Dom's Kitchen and Market. The closure set off a "whirlwind" of events, including a class action lawsuit by several employees alleging the companies broke state and federal laws by failing to properly notify employees that they would be laid off, Gold Coast store manager Maureen Talamantes said.

Outfox Hospitality, the parent company of Dom's and Foxtrot, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy weeks after the closures were announced.

But now, with fully stocked shelves, regular customers returning and the smell of coffee wafting through the store, the focus is on the success of the store at 23 W. Maple St., she said.

"We have been putting so much work in, we're just so excited," Talamantes said. "It's been an insane team effort and walking in this morning and having the store look so good, it's just 'Ahh.'"

Kudarzi, a 32-year-old doctoral student in mathematics at the Illinois Institute of Technology, said there aren't many cafes in her neighborhood where customers can take their laptops to work or study. Most just serve drinks to go. Varela, 37, works in sales and often travels to Chicago and all over the country for work. For him and others, Foxtrot is a remote worker's paradise.

"A good coffee shop that actually provides chargers, it's so nice," Varela said.

Vincent Del Toral, who lives in Lake View, sipped on an iced vanilla latte while editing photos. Before the closure, he worked at Foxtrot stores and picked up groceries often, but pivoted to Colectivo, Starbucks and Jewel-Osco in their absence.

"I usually just like it for the atmosphere," said Del Toral, 33. "I posted a story [on Instagram] like an hour ago and everybody has been liking it."

Thursday morning saw nearly every table occupied as customers tapped away on laptops and snacked on pastries while upbeat music played through the store. The atmosphere is much like the Foxtrot customers know and love, but the food and drink menu got a face-lift, Talamantes said.

"Everything's elevated," she said. "We all wanted the opportunity to come back and make this great, and here we are."

Retired couple Bella Vist and Berd Leon, who live across the street from the Gold Coast Foxtrot, rejoiced at the reopening, but not necessarily because of Foxtrot itself. Disenchanted by business closures they've seen over the years, they were ready to see something different.

"Not because of the coffee, not because of anything, because it's open," Vist said, raising her lipstick-stained Foxtrot cup in a toast. "Every time I walked by, I said, 'They'll be back.'"