Four businesses are celebrating grand openings this week in Evanston — two restaurants, a gardening shop and a realty office.
Viet Nom Nom, the fresh food catering service, opens its storefront restaurant at 618-1/2 Church St. with a ribbon cutting ceremony at 5 p.m. today.
Yeero Revolution, the Greek street food place at 1009 Davis St. that actually opened last November, is having what they’re calling an official grand opening at 11 a.m. Friday.
Green Edens Horticultural Services, a garden design and landscaping company founded in 2011, celebrates the opening of its new showroom and retail store at 1402 Greenleaf St. from 5 to 7 p.m. on Friday.
And Be Realty, a Chicago-based real estate brokerage, marks the opening of its new office at 725 Washington St. with an open house from 1 to 4 p.m. on Saturday.
How many empty storefronts remain?
And what’s the remaining count of empty storefronts? That’s part of the story, except the development staff at city hall won’t disclose that.
Vacant storefronts
The city typically issues data quarterly on the percentage of retail vacancies in town, as reported by CoStar, which produces similar data for the entire region.
A recent Evanston Now report, using a different methodology than what CoStar uses, indicated that the CoStar data may somewhat under estimate the vacancy level here.
But it’s important to note that some level of retail storefront vacancy is essential for new businesses to be able to find spaces in which to open.
— Bill
New businesses opening
Let’s celebrate these new businesses opening in our town. I’m sure when opening a business in a town, that business owner looks at like minded businesses, those here and gone. Evanston must still be seen as a good place to offer a service and make money……