Business

Bayless, Other Restaurant Owners Say NATO Was Bad For Business

Rick Bayless: everything wasn't coming up roses this weekend.
Rick Bayless: everything wasn’t coming up roses this weekend.

The restaurateurs we talked to (or heard from on Facebook) tended to compare NATO weekend to a big snow or other traffic-killing event. Chicago Business weighs in with a report confirming this, although the first person they talk to, Rick Bayless, sounds like he did better than most when he says that business at Frontera Grill and Topolobampo was only down 15 to 20%. Closer to the kind of figure that we heard from people is Takashi Yagihashi’s statement that business was off 65% at Slurping Turtle. Some shut down entirely due to safety concerns, like the Rosebud at Madison and Dearborn. But Bayless found one silver lining in the slow weekend: he was finally able to get into Tavernita. [Chicago Business]

Bayless, Other Restaurant Owners Say NATO Was Bad For Business