Maher Funeral Home opens in former Tinley Park Public Library

Maher Funeral Home is now open in the former Tinley Park library.

By Bob Bong
Southland Savvy

A new funeral home has opened in the former Tinley Park Public Library building at 7051 W. 171st St.

"We received our occupancy permit last week," said Phil Maher, co-owner of the new Maher Funeral Home.

Maher said the funeral home is a family affair with his business partner and brother John Maher providing elder care and other legal services for their clients, his sister Julia Maher Dombrowski handling public relations and an uncle Robert Maher taking care of community outreach for the business.

Phil Maher has been in the funeral business for 24 years and spent many of those years learning from his late mentor Andrew J. McGann Sr., who operated a funeral home in Chicago's Mount Greenwood community.

"I started with him when I was 19 years old," said Maher.

Maher said he struck out on his own more than a year ago and spent a lot of that time looking for the right location for his own funeral home.

"We found the library in January and spent the last several months remodeling the building," he said. 

"We liked the space that was available and the location and the fact it had parking for more than 100 cars."

The building has two 14,000-square-foot levels and the funeral home is on the main floor. It was built in 1973 and served as the Tinley library until it moved into a new location in 2004.

"We're waiting to see about the lower level," Maher said. "We're not sure if it will offices or storage."

As for the main level, Maher said they kept the library's large windows in the front because of the view they offered. They also did extensive landscaping work to the site.

"We have too large parlors that can combined into one massive parlor, if needed," he said. "Each parlor has its own coffee room and each parlor has its own outdoor seating area. I wanted to make sure they were separate, to be more accommodating for the families."

Maher said village officials were very happy to have the family buy the building.

"It had been vacant for many years," he said. "Even the neighbors are thrilled to finally have the building open again."

Maher said the community was invited to check out the new building at its open house from 3-8 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 20.

For more information, call 708-781-9212 or visit the funeral home website.

Jersey Mike's opens in Palos Heights

Southwest suburban fans of Jersey Mike's sub sandwiches won't have as far to go to get their fill, now that the East Coast-based food chain has opened in Palos Height. The next closest location had been in Orland Park.

Owner Mac Shimmon opened his latest Jersey Mike's recently at 12801 S. Harlem Ave. in Palos Heights in a former Foot Locker shoe store. 

It's the third new business in the former shoe store. A Lou Malnati's pizzeria opened there in September and a Great Clips hair salon opened in November.

It is the 12th Jersey Mike's franchise for Shimmon, who opened his first location in Orland Park in June 2011. He now owns Jersey Mike's in New Lenox, Frankfort, Elk Grove Village, Gurnee, Schaumburg, Glenview, Niles, Park Ridge and Buffalo Grove.

 “I am so excited to bring the Jersey Mike’s brand to Palos Heights,” said Shimmon in a release. 

Fans of the sandwich say you can feel the difference when compared to other submarine sandwich offerings.

Hours are 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily. 

For information, call 708-671-8748.

Tinley Kmart adopts K-fresh format

Kmart has reconfigured its Tinley Park store at 16300 S. Harlem Ave. from a Super Kmart into a new format the chain calls K-fresh.

The Hoffman Estates-based retailer is changing most of its remaining Super Kmarts into the new format, which includes the removal of its butcher, bakery and deli food service departments.

The new format also includes less sales floor space, reduced operating hours fewer staff.

The company said least five of its remaining 11 Super Kmart stores would be converted. The Tinley store was the only one in Illinois.

K-fresh stores have replaced the service departments with prepackaged items, and offer reduced brand variety and pack sizes.

Store hours have been cut from 24 hours to 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. 

If you see a new business in town or wonder what happened to an old favorite, drop me a line at bobbong@hotmail.com.

You can also catch up on Comings & Goings in other parts of the Southland at www.southlandbusinessnews.com.

NAPA auto parts opens in Tinley Park

NAPA auto parts has opened a store at 16086 S. Harlem Ave. in Tinley Park.

By Bob Bong
Southland Savvy

NAPA has opened another auto parts store in Tinley Park in the former Bud's sports bar at 16086 S. Harlem Ave.

The store is a franchise owned by Blissful Solutions LLC, based in Hillside.

Hours are from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday to Friday, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday.

For information, call the store at 708-468-8854 or visit NAPA.

Station drops Marathon for BP

Sangha's gas station at 79th Street and Roberts Road in Bridgeview recently converted from a Marathon station to a BP station while a station and convenience store a few blocks away at 7901 S. 87th Court in Justice recently opened as a Marathon station.

Toy store closes in Mokena

Creative Toy Mart, a popular toy store that opened in 2009 at 11326 W. Lincoln High way in Mokena, closed earlier this year after holding a going out of business sale.

Mokena plant moving to South Holland

Fusion Chicago Investments has purchased the 11,000-square-foot former Steiner Electric building at 401 W. Taft Drive in South Holland, said John Watson, director of economic development for South Holland.

The building's new owners have signed a long-term leasing agreement with DirectSat USA, a communications infrastructure provider that provides installation, upgrade and maintenance services for major satellite content providers. 

DirectSat will use the property to warehouse and repair Direct TV equipment and Direct TV products for offsite installations. 

The move will see 44 full-time maintenance personnel and six full-time office workers relocate to South Holland from the Mokena facility. 

Ashley Furniture opens new distribution center

Ashley Furniture, which operates several franchised stores in the south and southwest suburbs, opened its newest retail store and distribution center recently at 1045 W. Crossroad Parkway in Romeoville.

The 425,525 square foot facility was built because of high customer demand in the greater Chicago and Milwaukee markets, the company said in a release.

The chain, which operates as a series of independently owned and operated stores, is known for its merchandising concepts and designs including Urbanology, Vintage Casual, Metro Modern 14-piece packages called The Works.

The chain operates a dozen stores in the Chicago market.

If you see a new business in town or wonder what happened to an old favorite, drop me a line at bobbong@hotmail.com.

You can also catch up on Comings & Goings in other parts of the Southland at www.southlandbusinessnews.com

Talerico opens retail bakery

Talerico-Martin has opened a retail bakery on 63rd Street in Summit. (Courtesy of Talerico-Martin)

By Bob Bong
Southland Savvy

Summit's Talerico-Martin bakery, which has been selling baked goods wholesale to convenience stores for about three decades, has opened a retail bakery at 7334 W. 63rd St., across the street from Argo High School.

"We have a full line of products," said Gary Willard, assistant general manager. "Doughnuts, cookies, brownies, cakes and pastries."

He said the store would have a full coffee bar as well as offer snacks and juices.

Willard said owner Bob Talerico has spared no expense in opening the retail operation.

"It's a pretty decent setup," he said. "Bob is treating this nice. It's his baby."

"We're going to open the door and see who comes in," he said. "We'll have a grand opening in a month or so. We want to get any kinks worked out first."

Willard said customers would eventually be able to order cakes online and have them made any way they like.

"A customer will be able to have their face on the cake, if they want," he said.

Store hours will be from 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Saturday and from 5 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sunday.

Judging from the amazing smells that emit from the bakery on certain days, the goods should be fantastic.

Willard also said anyone who wants to see how the treats are made can just stop by.

"I'll take anyone on a tour who wants," he said.

For information, visit Talerico Bakery or check out their Facebook page.

Walgreens closes in Calumet City

Walgreens, the international pharmacy company that announced recently that it planned to close 200 stores over the next few years, has closed at least three stores in the south suburbs already this year.

The Deerfield-based chain said the stores slated for closing would be locations that were unprofitable. It said the employees would be offered transfers to other stores. It also said closings would hardly be felt by customers because of other nearby Walgreens. The company also said the closings would be offset by new store openings.

Those closings would be in addition to the closing in January of a Walgreens at 159th Street and Wood Street in Harvey, the closing in February of a store at 127th Street and Western Avenue in Blue Island and the closing recently of a location at 626 River Oaks Drive in Calumet City.

Some other south suburban stores are being demolished, and then rebuilt.

A new Walgreens opened recently at Southwest Highway and 95th Street in Oak Lawn. The new store was built on the same site as an earlier store, but the new version has a drive-through lane that the earlier store was lacking. The new store is about 62,000 square feet.

The new building was just sold for $10.7 million to a Northeast-based family office, according to a release from The Boulder Group, which represented both buyer and seller in the transaction. 

Walgreens probably won't be closing that site anytime soon. The chain has a 20-year lease with 11 five-year renewal options.

Domino's opens in South Chicago Heights

A new Domino's restaurant opened earlier this year at 45 W. Sauk Trail in South Chicago Heights.

The Michigan-based restaurant chain recently dropped the word "pizza" from its name but still specializes in pizza and sandwiches.

Hours at the new location are from 10:30 a.m. to midnight Sunday to Thursday and from 10:30 a.m. to 1 a.m. Friday and Saturday.

For information, call 708-441-3338 or visit Domino's.

 

Bobak's closes Archer Avenue company store

Bobak Sausage Co. closed its last company-owned store on Chicago's Southwest Side.

Loyal customers, some coming from as far away as northwest Indiana and Chicago's North Side, trekked to the store at 5275 S. Archer Ave. for the last time just before Easter.

The company, which got its start in 1967 and has operated the store on Archer since 1989, had moved its production to a bigger location last year but left the store open.

According to a letter the company distributed and posted on its Facebook page, a decision was made recently that it no longer made sense to keep the store open. The company said it was time to close the store and sell the building, which was otherwise empty since manufacturing was moved.

The company did hold out some hope for longtime customers by saying it might reopen the store at a future date.

Besides the regular Bobak products, which are carried in stores and markets across the Chicago area, the company store did carry some specialty items not available everywhere, such as its fresh Italian sausage, fresh Polish sausage and bacon sausage.

At one point, the company operated a handful of stores under the Bobak banner, including one in Orland Park. All of those stores were closed by 2007 after a particularly nasty fight between two of the sons of the founder.

If you see a new business in town or wonder what happened to an old favorite, drop me a line at bobbong@hotmail.com.

You can also catch up on Comings & Goings in other parts of the Southland at www.southlandbusinessnews.com