Picnic Basket Reopens, Doubles Size

After a month of closing its doors for expansion, a Libertyville staple has doubled its size, added plenty of windows and reopened.

, 501 N. Milwaukee Ave., quietly reopened Dec. 20. There were no grand reopening announcements, but the store still served about 300 customers, according to owner Ahmed Amin.

Amin says many were regulars who have been waiting for the reopening.

Trustee Jim Moran was one such customer during a late lunch Tuesday.

“We saw the sign last night and changed our lunch plans,” Moran said. “The food has always been excellent here and now having all this space is great.”

Kevin Baird, 32, who has been coming to the sandwich shop since high school, says he was surprised to see the store expand.

“I was shocked (to see the interior) I didn’t know that they would open up to this side because before it was all bottlenecked down the store,” Baird said.

His friend Gina Degregorio, 28, agrees.

“It’s a lot more relaxing to sit in here and eat than it was before when you were kind of fighting for space,” Degregorio said.

That’s exactly what Amin wanted to achieve with his expansion.

Renovating for a Relaxing Atmosphere

“I had customers always complaining that they didn’t have enough space, women with strollers couldn’t come and stand in line, people wanted to meet each other here and I didn’t give them a chance to talk,” Amin said. “Now, I don’t have that problem.”

Amin owns the building and the storefront into which expanded. Some features of the renovation includes expanding into the next store, adding large windows to overlook Cook Memorial Park, TV monitors to serve as electronic menus, larger hallways and a bigger kitchen.

The expansion now allows the store to accommodate 76 seating customers, before the store could only seat 33 people.

Extra food counter space also has been added so customers do not have to feel rushed and can look at the monitors to make their selection.

Expansion Allows for More Efficiency

The extra space also allows staff to be more efficient. The store used to serve some 2,500 sandwiches daily but with a lot of planning, Amin said.

“Now I can do the work I did before maybe in half the time,” he said.

He hopes the efficiency of his service will allow time-strapped customers to sit and relax.

“People only have about 30 or 45 minutes for lunch; they don’t want to stand in line for 20 minutes to place their order,” Amin said.

Extra entrances also were added in the back to allow access from the parking lot behind . This not only saves customers from walking 300 feet around the store, it also allows easier deliveries for the staff.

“Now that I am accessible from the back all the way from the parking lot, I expect my sales to increase at least 20 or 30 percent,” Amin said.

Restoring History

Another feature of the renovation is restoring the façade of the two-story structure to its former glory — synthetic stucco was replaced with new brickwork reminiscent of buildings in Libertyville at the turn of the century.

“They have done a phenomenal job matching this building with the rest of downtown ambiance,” Moran said.

Amin expects the store to be running at 100 percent efficiency by March 2012. He also is looking to add some children’s items and seven to nine new menu items featuring Mediterranean food with an “Amin twist.”

Instead of serving chicken kabobs, the sides and rice on a plate, Amin says he would like to serve them as a tortilla wrap.

By March, Amin also hopes to provide customers with ballpark calorie counts for each menu item.

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