City closes beloved sandwich shop Taurus Flavors after car crashed into it

It’s been an exhausting three months for Kecia Perkins, the owner of the beloved Taurus Flavors on the South Side, as she struggles to keep her family’s legacy alive.

The owner of the well-known family-owned sandwich shop at 8534 S. Stony Island Ave. in Avalon Park has seen her savings depleted as she’s worked to keep serving the community after a car slammed into the front of the restaurant shortly after 11 p.m. on May 30.

Luckily, no one was hurt. The restaurant, which can see long lines, had closed about an hour earlier.

The front of the building was destroyed by the car’s impact, but only five days later, as soon as the rubble in the kitchen was cleaned up, Perkins had the flat top grill fired up and was serving Taurus’ unique hoagy-style sandwiches again via a “BACK DOOR SPECIAL,” as its website advertised.

On a good day, Perkins said, the shop sells more than 1,000 of the Hoagy Supreme and Supreme Steak sandwiches they’re famous for.

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That is until Thursday, when the Chicago Department of Buildings shut them down again after an inspection prompted by a complaint posted to social media. The department cited concerns over sanitation and the structural soundness of the building in their decision.

A Building Department spokesman said the city will meet with Perkins to discuss the steps she’ll need to take before reopening.

“I can’t fault the city,” Perkins said. “You can’t operate with only one door.”

Bad look for community

Some in the neighborhood, where residents have patronized the business since Perkins’ mother and father opened in 1966 at its original location at 79th and Morgan streets, were also beginning to grumble after watching the building languish for months without progress on the repairs.

The shop’s boarded-up windows and spray-painted sign alerting customers that the business was open was a bad look for the community, some wrote on social media. Others questioned the restaurant’s sanitation as it continued operating from a single back door that opened into a parking lot near an alley.

Felicia Haynes, 63, who has lived nearby for 28 years, said seeing the restaurant in such a state of disrepair caused her to worry about property values and whether the city allowing the shop to operate in such conditions would prompt future businesses to question investing in the area.

“The way this building looks — and it just looks terrible — I don’t think we as a community should stand for that,” Haynes said.

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Haynes, who reported the building’s condition to Ald. Michelle Harris (8th) and through the city’s 311 system, said she was sympathetic to circumstances that are out of the owner’s control.

“If it’s an insurance issue, I get it that closing their business is hard and hurts their income,” Haynes said. “But it looks bad for the community. Would you want to invest [here] if the community allowed something like that?”

Haynes doubts the city would have allowed Taurus to continue operating in such a rundown state if it was located on the North Side. She said she hopes the shop will be able to reopen soon once it’s repaired.

“People do love it. There’s lines out the door,” Haynes said.

Insurance claims process delaying progress

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Perkins herself is just as disappointed with the current look of the business, which she took over from her parents in 2014.

“It does look bad. It looks horrible,” Perkins agreed. “But it’s not like I’m not trying to make it look better.”

Perkins, who has filed a claim to rebuild the shop through her policy with Travelers Insurance, said she never expected the process would take this long.

“My struggle has been getting my insurance company to do what I’ve been paying all those premiums all these years to do,” she said. “It’s been slow moving like a trail of molasses in the fridge.”

A spokesman for Travelers Insurance said the company couldn’t comment on individual claims for privacy reasons but noted the company was “working proactively with the customer and engineer involved toward a resolution in this matter.”

Attempts to secure a loan to cover the repairs until Travelers cuts her a check have also been difficult, said Perkins, who is considering holding a fundraiser.

Crash remains under investigation

Taurus Flavors/Twitter

Perkins said she’s received more information from the tow truck driver she had to hire to remove the white sedan from the building than the police who are investigating.

Videos posted to social media seemed to indicate there were three people inside the white sedan that eventually crashed into the shop; that the car was being driven recklessly; and that the passengers were hanging out of the car’s windows moments before it crashed into the restaurant’s lobby.

Chicago police said the occupants of the vehicle fled the area before officers arrived, but descriptions of the group were provided by witnesses. As of Friday, the case remained under investigation by the Major Accidents unit and no arrests had been made, a department spokesman said.

Looking forward to brighter days

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Perkins said she long hoped to tear down the current building, a former Tastee Freez that Taurus Flavors moved into around 1980.

With money from the insurance company, she hopes to revamp Taurus and get back to serving her customers as soon as possible.

Still, saying goodbye to the old shop won’t be easy.

“Two weeks after I was born they put me in a bassinet and put me next to the pop cooler,” Perkins said with a laugh.

“I’m a doer, and I feel a little lost” without the restaurant to manage. “But I’m not just sitting back, and I’m going to go down other avenues if possible.”

Contributing: Stefano Esposito