Pet lover opens Best Bites pet food store in Palos Park

By Bob Bong
Southland Savvy

For Joy Metzger, of Orland Park, her new business was a natural progression, not to mention a mouthful.

Metzger opened Joy’s Best Friends Ltd. Best Bites the day after Thanksgiving at 13034 S. LaGrange Road in the Shoppes of Mill Creek plaza in Palos Park. She sells all-natural pet food for dogs and cats along with some other pet supplies and toys.

She said she decided to open the store as a result of her search for natural pet food for her boxer Layla after the pet food scare of 2007. Pet owners may recall that pet food contaminated with melamine was recalled by the FDA in 2007 but only after killing dogs and cats across the United States.

“I started trying to find all natural food for my boxer puppy Layla,” says Metzger. The quest eventually led her to open her own store.

“I sell all natural pet food made in the U.S.A,” she says. “There is no corn, no gluten, no soy and no animal byproducts in the food I sell.”

“I figured I should open the store while I can,” says Metzger, who has operated a pet-sitting service out of her Orland Park home for nine years.

“Business has been so far, so good for me. People always treat their pets nice, even in a down economy,” she says.

Pet sitting and selling pet food is a far cry from her previous job as a CPA. “I’m far happier now,” she says.

And the strangest pet she’s ever cared for?

“A bearded dragon lizard,” she says with a laugh.

For more information, call Metzger at 708-448-1515. Her Web site is being updated to reflect the pet food business. You can find it at www.joysbestfriends.com

Burrito Loco opens in Tinley Park
El Burrito Loco opened last week at 8005 W. 183rd St. in Tinley Park. It is the chain’s 21st location.

Burrito Loco is a place to go if you have a hankering for Mexican food either early or late. The kitchen opens at 8 a.m. daily and closes at 1 a.m. Monday through Thursday but not until 3 a.m. on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

For a complete list of El Burrito Loco locations, visit www.elburritoloco.net

Meijer update
Readers keep asking about the Meijer store under construction in a former Value City Department Store near 159th Street and Harlem Avenue in Orland Park.

Here’s what I know. The store will be 102,000 square feet. That’s about half the size of traditional Meijer stores. It’s one of the company’s two experimental “grocery-focused stores.” The first opened in January in Niles. The idea is less general merchandise in favor of grocery items.
The store will have a deli and a drive-through pharmacy. Meijer expects about 150 jobs when the store opens.

The store is expected to open in June.

I’ll pass along more as I hear it.

The lieutenant gov sweepstakes: Yearning for a job no one should want

Dean Koldenhoven, a literal profile in courage from Palos Heights, wants to be the next Illinois lieutenant governor.

"Is this for real? I hope it is. I want the job. I want to do it," Koldenhoven told the Southtown's Guy Tridgell. "If I do get the job, you will know the process was honest."

He won't get the job.

Just the fact that Orland Hills Mayor Kyle Hastings was on the panel selecting finalists speaks to the absurdity of how we're going to get the Democratic nominee to the most useless office in the constellation of statewide offices.

A decent man by all accounts, Koldenhoven's claim to Southland fame is his mayoral veto of a smarmy city council effort to buy an old church building to prevent a mosque from moving into Palos Heights. The move cost him his seat in the next election.

So unlikely a finalist is he, in the Beachood Reporter's "lieutenant governor brackets," Koldenhoven plays the role of "who's he? vs. who's she?"

Which is why he should get the job.

Dennis Robaugh can be reached at dennis@southlandsavvy.com

Calumet City teen one of 40 youths at epilepsy rally on Capitol Hill

By Southland Savvy

Monica Manly, 16, of Calumet City, is in Washington, D.C., this week to meet with congressional leaders and gain their support for epilepsy public health programs and more research toward a cure for epilepsy.

Manly is one of 40 young people from across the country participating in Kids Speak Up!, a national program coordinated by the Epilepsy Foundation. The program, which runs today through Thursday, rallies young ambassadors with epilepsy between the ages of 8 and 17 to personally petition congressional leaders for aid in assuring better access to care, improved public education and more research toward a cure for epilepsy.

"Monica was selected to participate in Kids Speak Up! to represent the approximately 350,000 children who are living with epilepsy," said Eric Hargis, president and CEO of the Epilepsy Foundation. "She is an ideal candidate because of her efforts to spread awareness of epilepsy in her community. Her courage is an inspiration to us all."

New this year is the congressional briefing in which Greg Grunberg, star of NBC's "Heroes," who also serves as a Foundation spokesman in honor of his son Jake, who has epilepsy, will highlight the need for increased support of epilepsy research and the importance of public awareness and understanding of the condition. Joining Greg, will be Jason Snelling of the Atlanta Falcons -- who lives with epilepsy, and Geoffrey Pope of the Philadelphia Eagles -- whose grandmother has epilepsy.

Epilepsy is the most common neurological condition in children and affects nearly 3 million people in the United States. According to the World Health Organization, more than 300,000 children under the age of 15 live with epilepsy in the United States.