DeKalb city awards $25K in grant money to Cuatro Amigos Venue: ‘Downtown DeKalb is coming alive’

DeKALB – The former Lincoln Inn building downtown is getting a bit of a face-lift, in part because of a $25,000 grant from the city of DeKalb’s architectural improvement program for the building’s new owner, Cuatro Amigos Venue.

The aid provided by the city is meant to help the new event and banquet space – operated by the same owners as El Jimador Mexican Grill – to pay for lighting and exterior renovations to 240 E. Lincoln Highway.

The DeKalb City Council this week voted, 4-1, to award matching grant funds to the owners of the event space. Mayor Cohen Barnes abstained from voting. His business, SunDog IT, has been awarded tax increment financing money in the past.

“It means so much. Downtown DeKalb is coming alive. We’ve seen the growth and a lot of the changes downtown have been positive.”

—  Ryan Gifford, co-owner of Cuatros Amigos Venue in DeKalb

Co-owner Ryan Gifford said he and his three partners are happy to have the city’s support. He said the building was on sale for a while, and it’s only three doors down from El Jimador. The building previously was used for the Lincoln Inn, owned by Bill McMahon, which now operates out of Faranda’s, 302 Grove St.

“It means so much,” Gifford said. “Downtown DeKalb is coming alive. We’ve seen the growth, and a lot of the changes downtown have been positive. It’s just another building. We wanted to come in and potentially give it life.

“The assistance from the city is a huge help in helping us make the building something special downtown, something aesthetically pleasing but also to where what we’re doing to the outside can match the inside. We fully remodeled the inside.”

Cuatros Amigos Venue does not see use of the former Lincoln Inn building as a long-term necessity. Gifford said he hopes the downtown DeKalb spot will coax other restauranteurs to take advantage of the prime commercial real estate and put down roots in the community.

“Long-term, we actually hope another restaurant comes into town and rents this space from us,” Gifford said. “This space was sitting empty, a little bit of an eyesore, just the fact that it was sitting stagnant. So we decided, ‘Alright, let’s go and buy it. We’ll remodel it. We’ll market it as a restaurant.’ … The long-term hope for the location is that a nice little Italian restaurant, a soup and sandwich place, a brewery or something comes into town that will get even more use out of the building.”

El Jimador does a lot of catering and banquets on top of dine-in and takeout service, which Gifford said made he and his partners’ decision to buy the former Lincoln Inn all the more advantageous.

“It’s beyond busy,” Gifford said. “Enough so that we’re having trouble getting people booked for the weekend because the space is always busy. While we were remodeling, we thought, ‘Why don’t we do this? Why don’t we keep our bookings six months out and be available if a new restaurant wants to come to town and use the space to rent?’ ”

Gifford said he believes the event space will serve as a win-win for the community, as it will generate added taxes for the city from which to benefit.

He said the matching grant from the city helps propel a project that otherwise may not move forward as quickly.

“This helps us expedite what’s a very longer-term process of getting it done,” Gifford said. “We had some unexpected costs. Some of the framing underneath the facade, the old facade needed to be redone. We needed some new electrical done for some exterior lights. What was going to be a very basic thing, which is still expensive, the costs and what-not have grown. This allows us to get this done and get this place functional.”

According to city documents, the owners of the event space are investing $60,000 toward the project’s exterior renovation and lighting costs.

Cuatro Amigos Venue is eyeing a June 1 opening date for the event space downtown.