Wholey Granoly Receives $165K In Financial Assistance After Oswego Village Board Vote

OSWEGO, IL — The Village Board green-lit $165,000 in financial assistance to help Wholey Granoly bring new breakfast and lunch offerings to Oswego.

Trustees voted Tuesday night to approve a $125,000 revolving loan and $40,000 economic development incentive award for the restaurant opening in the former Dairy Barn building on Main Street in downtown Oswego.

The applicant requested the loan funding and grant award to help offset the "high building material and construction costs that exist in the current market," economic development director Kevin Leighty wrote in a memo. The total project costs about $365,000, and the business owner will cover the remaining $200,000 with personal equity, he said.

The family-owned business offers breakfast and lunch made with "clean, high-quality ingredients." The Oswego outpost will be Wholey Granoly's second location, the first having opened in 2022 in Bolingbrook.

"Wholey Granoly is a very unique concept in many, many ways," owner Christopher Ciezak said at Tuesday's meeting. "Our mindset on food is to keep things more natural and clean. We eliminate inflammatory ingredients, which cause a lot of gut irritation, while also stacking on a lot of highly nutrient-dense foods, so you can actually absorb nutrition from your food and feel good after you eat."

He added: "It's a regular food menu. ... It's real food, made better, and it makes you feel well."

The menu offers gluten-free dishes, vegetarian and vegan options, and halal meats, which "happen to be some of the highest-quality meats on the market," Ciezak said. The restaurant aims to stay away from "mass-produced, mass companies with ingredient lists of 15-20 items."

"We get a lot of love because there aren't a lot of options for folks," he said.

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Although the Dairy Barn building is still considered new construction, Leighty said the tenant identified the need for several functional and operational improvements, including enclosing the outdoor patio for additional seating, installing new signs and purchasing new equipment.

The 5,000-square-foot building at 121 Main St. was built on the site of the longtime home of Dairy Hut, which was demolished once the business closed in August 2019 after nearly 60 years of operation.

The loan has a 3 percent interest rate on the outstanding balance, which will be repaid over a 10-year period.