Despite being delinquent for years in paying its city water bills, not paying fines it owed for failed city inspections and not paying property taxes for 12 years, a South Side diner was given the plum of taking part in this year’s Taste of Chicago.
Josephine’s Southern Cooking owed City Hall more than $22,000 in unpaid water bills and $7,600 in fees and fines for failed health and building inspections from as recently as April.
But being delinquent on its payments to the city — and also having racked up more than $500,000 in taxes it owes Cook County — didn’t keep Josephine’s from being handed a coveted spot by Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration to sell food at Taste of Chicago events this summer.
That’s even though the city’s rules ban businesses from Taste if they owe the city money.
City Hall says Josephine’s was allowed at Taste because it agreed to make payments toward what it owes the city.
Victor Love, who owns the restaurant with his mother Josephine Wade, agreed to payment plans on July 8 — the day this year’s Taste opened in Grant Park.
“The Chicago Department of Business Affairs & Consumer Protection can issue a business license if an applicant is on a payment plan with the city of Chicago,” Lightfoot press secretary Cesar Rodriguez says.
On Taste’s opening day, City Hall set up two five-year payment plans for Josephine’s — one for its unpaid water bills, the other for overdue fines from inspections. For the water bills, it was the restaurant’s fourth payment plan since 2009.
But the payment plans didn’t come until nearly a month after Lightfoot’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events allowed the restaurant to sell four varieties of flavored corn at a Taste of Chicago popup event in Austin on June 11.
“There are people that owe far more to Chicago, more water bills and light bills and everything else, than I do,” Wade says.
Love didn’t call back after saying he would.
City officials say they don’t know how much money Josephine’s — or any other vendor — made at any Taste of Chicago events because people bought food directly from vendors’ booths this year, a change from the longstanding practice in which people bought tickets from city kiosks to then use to buy food at Taste.
Wade opened the restaurant at 436 E. 79th St. in 1986 as Captain’s Hard Times. Her son later changed the name to Josephine’s Southern Cooking.
The restaurant’s soul food menu has been popular with Chicago politicians, civil rights leaders and visiting celebrities.
In applying for Taste, Love wrote that “the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, made it a point to visit Josephine’s each time she was in town for a delicious bowl of her famous gumbo.”
The restaurant stopped paying its property taxes in 2010. With the unpaid tax debt and interest now topping $500,000, the Cook County treasurer’s office put the taxes up for sale last February, and someone paid $17,500 for the right to buy the property for a fraction of the delinquent taxes, a deal that is pending.
With Wade and Love facing the possibility of losing the restaurant, Love submitted the Taste application March 24.
The restaurant had given $500 to Lightfoot’s campaign fund on March 7 and gave her another $100 on March 31.
On April 8, the Chicago Sun-Times reported that the restaurant hadn’t paid property taxes for 12 years and that a county agency, the Cook County Land Bank Authority, had taken steps that helped Wade avoid paying taxes and stave off any tax sale for years.
On April 25, City Hall’s finance department responded to a Sun-Times public records request by providing a list of the restaurant’s City Hall debts, which totaled $29,913, including years of unpaid water bills.
On May 12, City Hall issued Josephine’s a special events license to sell food at the Taste of Chicago Austin popup on June 11 and the main three-day Taste of Chicago. It listed the restaurant on its website promoting Taste vendors.
The years of unpaid property taxes weren’t an issue for Josephine’s in getting the licenses, according to cultural affairs department spokeswoman Madeline Long. She says her agency checks only for debts to City Hall, such as for unpaid water bills.
Since agreeing to the two payment plans, records show, Josephine’s has made a series of payments to City Hall but still owes $26,200.
