Believing his homeland was behind the times, Art Nati left his native country of Albania, and its Communist regime, and eventually found a new home in the northwest suburbs of Chicago.
For the past year, Nati has been working as an entrepreneur, owning and operating a hot dog place in Buffalo Grove. The 52-year-old Park Ridge resident bought Wiener Take All, 1117 Weiland Road, Buffalo Grove, on Valentine’s Day 2016 from 30-year owner Drew Olbur.
Since then, Nati has updated the interior of the restaurant and the look of the menu, but he has held on to the photos of youth-league baseball teams that the hot dog place long has sponsored.
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While he wants Wiener Take All to look new, he wants customers to know its history to the Buffalo Grove community, he said.
As a high school student in the Albania in the 1980s, Nati said he felt “suppressed” by the country’s communist government and wanted to know more about the rest of the world. He studied mechanical engineering in college, but found no escape in the rigorous discipline, he said.
“Then they opened the borders, and I went to Greece,” Nati said. “Escaped.”
When he arrived in the US after stops in Europe, he said he wanted to follow his family’s roots. His grandfather owned a restaurant while becoming a US citizen after moving from Albania to Tennessee in 1900, Nati said.
Q: You’ve got an international view of an American dish. What constitutes the best hot dog?
A: A good hot dog is the Chicago style. It’s a combination of everything there. It’s healthier than any other hot dog, having all those vegetables there.
Q: You’ve also got an international view of America. What does the United States mean to you?
A: I’ve been an immigrant in Greece, as well, for one year there. And now with social media, we get all kinds of experiences. I follow politics a lot, and I read. But these days, you start a conversation and you end up in a fight. Human nature, people love to complain. The most interesting thing in America is that you have a lot more freedom here. You can be whatever you like. It’s so easy here to continue whatever you started in your own country. It’s much easier to start a business here if you want to.
Q: And you could have changed Wiener Take All into something else if you’d wanted. Why keep the name, and will you try to stay as involved with the local school an park districts as Olbur did?
A: I’ve been in business a long time. You have to be involved. And you feel better. You feel appreciated.
Shout Out is a weekly feature in which we introduce our readers to their fellow community members and local visitors throughout suburban Chicago.
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