CHICAGO (FOX 32 News) -
At the Potbelly's shop on Lincoln Avenue today, business was off.
"It was a big difference," Potbelly's Christy Fleming said. "You could tell that there was a big dent in our business."
Right across the street, Papa D's grill noticed a downturn too.
"Today's been a little bit slower for the lunch crowd," manager Doug Graham said.
Further north, it's the same story, at Clarke's Bar and Grille.
"We've definitely seen a reduction in business," manager Nick George said.
Saturday's closing of Children's Memorial Hospital and the transfer of 126 patients to the new Lurie Children's Hospital downtown has left many Lincoln Park businesses without many of their most reliable customers.
"We would get every one of their shifts, on their rotations they would come in, " George said. "You know, people that were visiting their children that were sick would come in."
"We had tons of nurses, tons of doctors, we had people from security," Fleming said.
Children's closing, of course, came as no surprise to all of the businesses. Some of them have been planning for months on how they would cope with it.
For example, Simply It, a Vietnamese Restaurant near Children's, is offering free delivery on orders to the new downtown hospital. Potbelly's is reaching out to local schools with special offers. And others are hoping the commercial and residential redevelopment of the hospital site will bring in a whole new line of hungry clientele.
"If they start doing renovations, there will be construction workers around, who typically don't bring their lunch to work," Graham said. "So we'll try to reach out to them."
