LAKEVIEW — After 68 years, sometimes a little room to grow is in order.
The owner of Paulina Meat Market, at 3501 N. Lincoln Ave., hopes to add a second floor to the market building and has cleared the first hurdle with the city's zoning committee.
Bill Begale said he wants to move the sausage kitchen, smokehouse and packing room upstairs, which would open up the ground floor for more retail.
"If we want to continue to be here, we need to evolve," Begale said. "If we just stay the way we are, we could make it, maybe, but I'm thinking of the future."
Begale, his wife and their three children run the market, which longtime shop manager Begale bought from the sons of the original owner, Sigmund Lekan, in 2006.
Back then, Begale made slight changes, putting in new display cases and freezers in the front and making room for specialty grocery items like pastas, jams and jellies and premade "heat-and-eat" entrees.
Paulina Meat Market is known for its roster of more than 80 unusual, handmade sausages, from the Cajun andouille sausage to a goat bratwurst meant to break the Cubs' long-standing (but ultimately vanquished) curse of the Billy Goat.
The traditional German butcher shop, which also recently began to offer delivery, has hard-to-find steaks, Colorado Springs lamb, Wisconsin veal and Amish chicken, turkey and duck — not to mention 10 kinds of bacon.
But as property taxes continue to climb, "we can't keep raising prices to keep up," Begale said. So expanding the retail offerings was vital to the market's survival.
Begale is hoping to expand the storefront in February, with plans to close for two weeks to complete preliminary work on the addition.
He knows the zoning process in Chicago can be complex, so he's keeping the timetable relatively flexible.
Once the renovations are complete, Begale said the market will become more of a one-stop shop, with "more like 90 percent of the stuff you would get at a normal grocery store, instead of 65 percent."
There's also the potential that the market will expand its offerings from behind the counter to include fish or sandwiches made in-house.
"I don't want to be the guy that's been around for 60 years that has to close," Begale said. "I'd rather take a risk like this and get more sales to help us stick around."
