‘It just felt right’: The Graceful Ordinary owners look to build on success with new restaurant in Aurora

As owners of The Graceful Ordinary in St. Charles searched for the right place to open their second restaurant, they wanted something that reminded them of their Chicago roots.

They feel like they’ve found that in downtown Aurora, which will be home to their new Italian-inspired restaurant and café Vicolo, which they expect to open in the spring.

“It just felt right,” Megan Curren said. “We’ve been approached by other towns … but (the opportunities) just didn’t grab us. This one really does, it feels a little like coming back home.”

Megan Curren and her chef husband, Chris, hope the eatery, to be housed in a former art studio at 7 S. Broadway, will be a big part of the downtown’s renaissance.

“We’re really excited about that area,” Chris Curren said. “I’m really excited about what the city has in store, because I think that they have the right people in place to get the vision of what they’re trying to get accomplished. They want a brighter future for Aurora, and I think that they have the pieces to do it.”

The couple, who now live in Hampshire after opening TGO in 2021, were drawn by the historic charm of one of Aurora’s oldest buildings. They plan to preserve the original wood floors, tin ceiling, exposed brick, old plaster and add elements like stained glass that reflect the building’s history.

“For us, Vicolo was an Old World concept to begin with when it lived in our brains, so when we found this building, it felt right,” Megan said.

The long, narrow building that dates back to the 1800s has served as a stable, cigar shop and a shoe store over the years before it’s most recent incarnation as a gallery.

For Vicolo, the building’s entrance off Broadway will open into a brightly lit café counter, offering freshly made pasta, coffee and gelato for carryout guests during the day.

In the evening, the eatery will transform into a high-end dining destination with a curated craft cocktail menu that complements the locally sourced, chef-driven dinner offerings.

A massive wood-fired pizza oven will be the focal point of the dining room and will feature a counter where guests can dine while watching the action.

Toward the back, an iron catwalk will connect a cocktail lounge to a mezzanine with additional seating options. Vicolo’s wine cellar, which highlights the building’s original stonework, will double as a private dining room.

The Currens also were drawn to the building’s location adjacent to the space known as Skinny Park, which they’ll use as an outdoor seating area and “piazza” that provides a relaxed atmosphere for al fresco dining and community programming.

“That appealed to us because it did have that communal vibe, where people will be walking around and passing by and have that vibrancy that we knew we wanted from this,” Megan said.

Chris Curren said he’s had the menu for the restaurant in his head for 25 years.

“I’ve had the opportunity to work for a number of very talented chefs that cook in the Italian style, so homemade pastas have always been something that I put on all of my menus, no matter whether it’s an Italian restaurant or not,” he said. “And I’ve probably made 15,000 to 20,000 wood-fired pizzas in my career. It’s the food that we like to eat, and to be perfectly honest, it would be something that I would choose to eat every day if that was an option.”

The restaurant will be the couple’s second in their recently formed O & D Hospitality group — named after their children, Oliver and Delilah.

They envision the group being primarily one-off concepts developed around the spaces in which they exist.

“That way it feels more organic,” Chris Curren said.

Even with the success of The Graceful Ordinary, the Currens were cautious when it came to opening more restaurants.

“We both worked for hospitality groups where expansion was the beginning of the end,” Megan said. “We’ve always said we’ll never grow by sacrificing our first, so making sure that this place is still up and running is our number one priority. We definitely feel like we’re in a good place, the team we have here is solid so we feel really comfortable.”

https://www.dailyherald.com/20241021/business/it-just-felt-right-the-graceful-ordinary-owners-look-to-build-on-success-with-new-restaurant-in-a/