Chicago City Wire

Richard Sykes spent much of Wednesday converting Bombastic Café from a coffee shop-art gallery into a takeout and delivery business because of the COVID-19 crisis.

“That’s not the business I wanted to be in. I wanted to be in an art gallery, coffee shop, not a restaurant supply house for the neighborhood,” he said.

He doesn't think a suggestion by Gov. J.B. Pritzker, reported by Chicago City Wire, that large group events like Cubs' games in nearby Wrigley Field won't be held this summer will affect his business.

“I don’t think so only because I have a really strong neighborhood base that was coming month after month, week after week,” he said.

The customers didn’t stop coming until the shutdown of non-essential businesses and restrictions to take-out and delivery orders.

What would damage his business more is if the governor extends the closure order. Taking away the ability for people to sit down at the coffee shop, take out their laptop and participate in lively discussions will continue to harm his business. But he'll roll with the punches.

He sees the damage coming to the Music Box Theater, an art-house and repertory cinema on North Southport Avenue. People who go there sit elbow to elbow, something not allowed with social distancing. Sykes said the neighborhood has three theater buildings within 100 feet of each other. The Music Box, Mercury and Venus theaters operate as anchors for the community he said. They fit the culture of the neighborhood.

On Wrigley's northside you’ll see big box, Amazon-type businesses, Sykes said.

“This side is uniquely, truly Lakeview in my opinion, having only lived here 30 years,” he said.

The theaters will be hurt by the COVID-19 closures. He believes the real damage is to the people in the community who go to those venues.

For his own business, Sykes applied for a coronavirus relief grant the first day possible.

“I didn’t get in the lottery, didn’t get in the grant money,” he said. “I’m sitting here paying rent on a vacant business that’s closed down.”

He said a disproportionate amount of funding went to bail out cruise ships and airlines instead of small business. He wants more funds in support of small businesses.

Sykes is disturbed by disinformation about the coronavirus threat, how to manage it and how to deal with it.

“Quarantining people that are sick is one thing. Quarantining people that aren’t sick is tyranny,” he said.

The elderly and people with underlying health conditions need to be under quarantine to keep them safe from those who may have the coronavirus and not know it, he said.

“It’s coffee shop talk. People come in, talk about it, think about it and other knowledgeable people talk about it,” Sykes said.

He believes it’s important to have the coffee shop open for the customers in the community. His customers include business people, teachers, PTA members, artists and writers.

“They’re really missing out on something that they enjoyed here. That was the social interaction to discuss topics of the day,” Sykes said. “This is the topic of the year and I don’t think this is being properly addressed in the media.”

Sykes stopped being a sports fan after Michael Jordan retired and Jim McMahon was permanently injured.

“After those two, I kind of lost my heart for sports," he said. “But Chicago beating the Pistons for the first time they beat them... was the sweetest thing.”

Fans from Wrigley Field brought some business to Bombastic Café last year, owner Richard Sykes said.

“They were regulars who knew they could get a great cup of coffee and come back,” he said. “They were respectful.”

Sykes was a little leery about fans stopping by as it doesn’t seem like a baseball fan’s kind of place.

Those fans helped create an estimated $789 million positive impact in the community through direct, indirect and induced spending.

Direct spending on retail shops, hotel rooms, restaurants and game-day operations – plus non-Cubs entertainment – bolstered the economy with an estimated $457 million.

The games increase tax revenues at local, county and state levels. Now, many permanent jobs created during the Wrigley restoration project are at risk of being eliminated, with many of the employees who filled them already furloughed or laid off

The bulk of the positive economic benefits stand to be lost with no baseball season and no games as Wrigley.