Joliet may spend $250,000 to get out of MyGrain Brewery lease

The city of Joliet essentially will pay $250,000 to buy a brewpub and break a lease with the closed MyGrain Brewery if the City Council votes to approve that plan.

MyGrain shut down in August 2023 after operating for six years at Union Station while getting rent breaks and tax abatements.

But MyGrain owner Greg Lesiak still is the leaseholder on the space.

The City Council will vote Tuesday whether to pay $250,000 to break the lease with Lesiak.

The money would buy the restaurant tables, bar and brewery equipment that MyGrain used to make beer in Joliet.

Joliet Community Development Director Dustin Anderson said Friday that the city would “probably sell” the brewery equipment unless another brewpub operator wants to move in.

No potential tenant is in the wings, he said. But getting back control of the space will clear the way to find another tenant.

“We really haven’t aggressively marketed it because we technically haven’t been able to because someone else is there with a contract on that space,” Anderson said.

Anderson, who was hired by the city in 2024 and long after the lease was signed, said the agreement does not compel Lesiak to pay rent to remain the legal tenant.

Going to court for an eviction could cost more than the $250,000 the city plans to pay Lesiak while taking an unknown amount of time, he said.

Anderson called the lease buyout “a fair deal for everybody,” saying the city is paying less than the appraised value for the brewpub furnishings and equipment while getting access again to the space.

He noted that the $250,000 the city would pay for the MyGrain property is less than its appraised value.

Lesiak could not be reached for comment.

He went into the MyGrain venture with partner Vince Turrise, who later left the business.

The partners invested an estimated $2.5 million in the space, including the conversion of a former storage area with a dirt floor into the area used for the microbrewery.

The city at one point provided them with one year of free rent in exchange for the investment and later provided property tax abatements when an assessment boosted what MyGrain had to pay at a time that construction projects were hurting business.

MyGrain was at least the third restaurant or bar to try to occupy the space at the front entrance to Union Station, and it was there the longest.

Anderson said another restaurant would be the probable next occupant but added that the city would be open to other possibilities.