Post #410626 by BambooLodge on Mon, Sep 29, 2008 9:17 AM

Aloha,

Some folks here may already know, but for those who don't here's the scoop.....

Coalbe and I have been working with Suzy Fong of Chef Shangri-La to have a once a month event. This was going to be a free event called "An Evening in Shangri-La" to be held on the 3rd Saturday of each month, with Suzy paying for the bands and what not. She was going to have food and drink specials, along with a free rafflle each month. We were planning to showcase a variety of great entertainers from around the area as well.

Long story short, we wrote a letter to the Mayor of North Riverside on Suzy's behalf, explained all of the above, and even invited him out to the first one which we were planning for September 20th. I received a phone call from him the following night and this is basicly what I was told. He said there is no entertainment allowed in North Riverside, but he makes exceptions for Suzy's special events only. He also said that she is more than welcome to come to village hall and talk to him about it. He also made it very, very clear that I don't have the right to ask for anything, 'cuz I don't hold the liquor license for Chef Shangri-La, what ever the hell that means. I tried to explain that we're just trying to bring in some more business for the restaurant, during these tough times. In all honestly I don't think the Village gives a flying shit if the Chef shuts the doors tomorrow. I'm sure they'd like to see something else occupying that corner anyway.

Suzy is almost 70 years old, but has no intentions on retiring soon, she likes running the restaurant. Her family doesn't help out any more because they do want her to retire. The problem is the same for her as it is everywhere right now, because of the economy, business is way down from a year ago. Chef Shangri-La has been around for just over 32 years, and Suzy would run for another 30 if she had her way.

Even though we can't have monthly entertainment, we're still going to have sort of a "Meet 'n Eat" on the 3rd Saturday each month with dinner and drink specials as well as some great FREE raffle prizes that have been donated, like Cocktail Preacher CDs, Go Tsunami T-shirt, Exotica Posters, Chef T-shirt, possibly an occasional tiki necklace or mug.

We did not have a lot of time after the bomb the mayor laid on us, but we did manage to pull off the first one on Saturday September 20th. We had a nice turnout and we'd like to thank everyone who made it out with such short notice. We'd like to get some more folks out for October, so mark your calendar for 10/18/08, and please come join us for "An Evening in Shangri-La" !

This is one of the last remaining "old school" Tiki establishments left in the Chicagoland area..............

.............so stop in have dinner and/or a drink when your in the neighborhood, and tell your friends to do the same!

Mahalo,

Dave & Coalbe

[ Edited by: BambooLodge 2016-06-16 05:24 ]