After receiving national acclaim for redefining Korean-American cuisine in Chicago, husband and wife celebrity chefs Beverly Kim and Johnny Clark are embarking on a new culinary venture, one that brings them to downtown Evanston.
“Alleyway Grill,” as Kim and Clark plan to call it, is a restaurant intended to invoke some of their “earliest memories of food,” having both grown up in the Midwest. Kim is originally from Downers Grove and Clark is from Cincinnati.
“We just want to use a lot of Midwestern ingredients and then to just diversify ourselves from our Korean and Ukrainian concepts, we want to have [a restaurant] that expresses that other side,” Clark told Pioneer Press.
The duo currently owns and operates two other restaurants: Parachute Hi-Fi, what Clark labels an “evolution” of the original Parachute restaurant, which closed in 2024 after a 10-year run in Avondale, and Anelya, a Ukrainian eatery located just a minute’s walk away.
Hailed as one of America’s best modern Korean restaurants at its peak, Parachute started as a way for Kim to channel her cultural heritage. Anelya’s Ukrainian influence honored Clark’s.
Both establishments have garnered widespread success and national recognition. In 2015, Parachute earned a coveted Michelin Star, which it held until 2021. During that run, Kim and Clark also won the James Beard Award for Best Chef: Great Lakes in 2019.
But the two are now looking to switch things up and reconnect with their hometown roots.
Alleyway Grill is slated to open in early 2027, Kim and Clark confirmed, on the ground floor of the historic former Varsity Theater located at 1710 Sherman Avenue in Evanston.
The theater closed in 1984, but the multi-floor building now serves as an apartment complex, restaurant and retail space.
Located inside Bookman’s Alley, the restaurant’s entrance is tucked away from plain sight, which Kim said is what initially attracted them both to the space.
“I think some people maybe would have overlooked it because it’s not a storefront space, but we thought that it [had] a very unique story and a unique wayfinding. Kind of a discovery to go through an alley, right?” she said.
“The alleyway used to be a rugged pass through for trucks, garbage trucks, deliveries and all of that stuff,” Clark said.
“Developers chose to work with the city and close it off to pedestrians only, so now, the only way to get back there is to walk.”
But the pair said that concept helped them both “imagine” what a rejuvenation of the space would look like and what kind of narrative it could tell.
“This is our third restaurant, and moving out of Avondale, it had to be an interesting story for us, just like, intriguing,” Kim said.
“[This location] felt meaningful because it was about revitalizing a space that was historically a place the community remembers.”
With interior construction just beginning, Kim and Clark are still very much in the planning stages of development.
And while they want Alleyway Grill to feel like a “modern restaurant,” it being housed in a nearly century-old building has heavily influenced the design concept.
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“We started thinking about something that would feel like, if a restaurant had been opening in that building when it was built, what would that restaurant be?” Clark said.
“The idea is [for it] to feel like a restaurant that’s been there for 100 years, but also making it feel like we just opened it at the same time.”
This includes keeping the original open concept floor plan and having the kitchen, or the main event, be located where the movie screen once was.
“So it’s still kind of like the action is happening right there in that same spot,” Clark added.
No formal menu has been set yet, but the pair said they hope to offer several “regional specialties” that include farmer’s market-driven cuisine.
“We want to definitely highlight some Midwestern regional dishes that have become maybe slightly obscure…but also dishes that are still popular today,” Clark said.
One example would be their take on the “hanky panky,” a retro party appetizer that’s made with ground beef, pork sausage and Velveeta cheese.
But their version, Clark added, would feature local, “high quality ingredients.”
“Also having a live fire grill just to kind of invoke those summertime backyard barbecues…we just want to have a little bit of nostalgia in this restaurant and express the other side of ourselves that we don’t get to express.”
Alleyway Grill plans to be open seven days a week, from brunch time until the late evening, offering everything from pastries and coffee in the morning to a full-course meal at night.
“You know, Evanston is a college town, so we want it to also be that place that is available for all those celebrations: parents coming into town, after a football game or just for the locals to have dinner,” Clark said.
The two hope to share more about their design plan for the space and an updated food and beverage menu in the months to come.
“We’re super looking forward to being a part of the Evanston community,” Kim said.
“And I went to Kendall College a long time ago when it was in Evanston, so it feels like a full circle moment.”