Last summer, the owner of the Slice of Chicago restaurant at 1600 W Broadway came forward with a proposal to turn the mutated phone booth of a building at the corner of Broadway and Washington into yet another fried food takeout joint. I never set foot in the place when Jug Liquor was still open for business, although during my brief stay at "Upper Drug-o-topia," the professional drunkards downstairs frequented Jug to buy their 24-packs of Milwaukee's Best (which, for the record is NOT Milwaukee's best).
On top of simply not needing another fried food and styrofoam-producing shack along Broadway, there's another reason to be relieved that this particular proposal never had more substance than the cheap "Natural Ice" beers that were sold at Jug. The owner of Slice of Chicago at 1600 West Broadway entered into a voluntary agreement to withdraw his food manufacturer/business license "in lieu of an adverse hearing." Apparently there were both major health/safety violations there as well as continuous drug dealing on the premises. Good for Jordan that the place was shut down, and good for Hawthorne that the same stuff didn't pop up here.
While the Jug Liquor site has no demolition order on it, I find it hard to imagine anything else happening with this property, and have reason to believe the owner is razing the structure on his own volition. Maybe in the near future, we can get something like a Nice Ride bike rack on a key intersection.
