Lawsuit: City Hall rigged Riverwalk concession review for black-owned restaurant
Jonathan Bilyk | Cook County Record (December 15, 2025)
Jonathan Bilyk’s legal coverage for the Cook County Record and Legal Newsline outlines the constitutional and civil rights claims raised by restaurateur Robert Gomez in his federal lawsuit against the City of Chicago. The article closely examines the political and legal backdrop, highlighting allegations that Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration solicited a late proposal from a preferred vendor and manipulated scoring to favor a Black-owned business over Beat Kitchen, which had submitted the only timely and complete proposal. Bilyk underscores Gomez’s assertion that his proposal offered $1.4 million in rent and revenue sharing, compared to a fraction of that amount in the selected bid. The reporting focuses on Gomez’s claims of unlawful racial preferences, procurement misconduct, and violations of city code tied to federally funded public concessions.
