- Michael Gebert
- Pasta, because you’ve never seen a picture of it before.
Roxy’s American Grill, a staple of the River North restaurant scene since 2012, will close this Saturday and reconcept in the next few weeks as L’Assurdità, an Italian restaurant. Owners Gus Andropolous and Stanley Kim said that business had been declining for some months. Customers increasingly entered the restaurant “only to be baffled by offerings such as steak and lobster. We spent more time explaining the absence of braciole and strozzapreti than introducing people to the cuisine of North America,” explained Kim.
Owner Kim said, “We tried to make it with a more radical concept, but I just don’t think this was the space for it. The people of Chicago like their Italian. Jesus God, do they like Italian food. Put an ‘e’ at the end of a bowl of carbs and you can sell the shit out of it and keep your food costs under 30 percent. Wait a minute. I didn’t say that. I meant to say, Italian food has all the simple, rustic virtues of fresh, local cuisine that people identify with these days and it’s a natural fit for our group to honor those traditions and our own heritage. I mean, Koreans eat a lot of pasta too. Hey, we’re practically paisan. You know, like DeNiro says to that guy in Godfather II. We did a lot of research for this concept like that. Can you just leave me alone now?”
