Dockside Dogs, a lakefront fixture for more than 40 years — offering hot dogs, hamburgers, Italian beef and similar fare — will no longer operate there, but Waukegan Harbor & Marina officials say a similar eatery will take its place in April.
Jose A. Guzman, the eatery’s owner since 2014 and Waukegan’s Second Ward alderman, said the business was losing money for the past few years forcing him to subsidize it.
“I needed to get out from under,” he said. “I couldn’t afford the increased rent,” he added, referring to what he paid the Waukegan Port District, his landlord. “The business just wasn’t there. I had to subsidize the business from my full-time job.”
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Joe Seidelmann, the director of the commercial port and marina operations at the Waukegan Marina & Harbor operated by the Port District, said Guzman’s lease expired March 31 of last year. He became a holdover tenant and fell behind with rent payments.
“He was required to put in writing that he planned to continue, and he did not make the request,” Seidelmann said. “We had to move forward with legal action to collect the past-due balance.”
A team of Lake County sheriff’s deputies completed the eviction of Dockside Dogs on Sept. 5 on Clayton Street, less than a block from Lake Michigan near the marina, ending a legal process that started in April.
Now that the Port District has legal possession of the property and building, Seidelmann said he can complete negotiations for an operator to open a similar business when the boating season begins on April 1.
“They’ll serve hot dogs, hamburgers, brats and similar sandwiches,” Seidelmann said.
“There’ll be snacks and drinks. We’re negotiating with someone now. We hope to finalize it soon.”
Though the boating season started April 1, Seidelmann said Dockside Dogs did not open this year until July 3. With negotiations stalled and rent unpaid, he said the Port District served the business with a 30-day notice to pay the rent due or vacate the premises.
When neither occurred, Seidelmann said the Port District took the matter to Lake County Court, where a judge ruled on Aug. 11 that Nick’s Jolly Bull, Inc. — Dockside Dogs’ corporate owner, for which Guzman is president — must vacate the premises by Oct. 3.
Seidelmann declined to comment on the amount of past-due rent.
Now 48, Guzman said his affiliation with Dockside Dogs started when he was 9. His father worked there, and the then-owner paid him for removing debris and filling the soda machine. He grew into the business, buying it in 2014.
Obtaining a liquor license so people could have a margarita or a beer with their sandwich, Guzman said the financial problems with the company began when he did not renew the liquor license for 2024, a year after his election to the City Council.
Under Illinois law, elected officials in a city of Waukegan’s size cannot have a liquor license. Guzman said at the time the right choice was remaining a council member and not renewing the license.
“I dropped the liquor license and stopped selling alcoholic beverages because serving the public is more important right now,” he said at the time. “They should change the law, because it keeps a lot of people out of public service.”
Though he thought in the spring of 2024 the impact of not selling alcoholic beverages at Dockside Dogs would not hurt revenue that much, as the season continued through October he learned otherwise.
“It was such a (financial) drag,” he said. “I should have let it go then. I tried it for a while, but it was not sustainable. I really enjoyed it down there. I met so many wonderful people.”