New Sushi Restaurant ‘The Orange Hat’ Approved for Frankfort

FRANKFORT – A new full-service sushi restaurant, The Orange Hat, is set to open in the Hickory Creek Market Place after the Village Board approved a special use permit for liquor sales on Monday.

The restaurant will be located at 19951 S. LaGrange Road in a space formerly occupied by other Japanese restaurants. The applicant, Jiedong Zhou, plans to offer a menu featuring a variety of appetizers, sushi, fried rice, and other dishes, along with beer and wine.

The proposal came with a unanimous recommendation from the Frankfort Plan Commission, which held a public hearing on the matter on July 10. During that hearing, Zhou, who also goes by Alex, explained that it was his first restaurant and that he created the menu himself.

A key part of the discussion involved the restaurant’s open sushi bar. While customers can sit at the bar to watch chefs prepare their food, all alcoholic beverages must be delivered by waitstaff. The Village Board adopted a condition recommended by the plan commission stipulating that if alcohol is ever served directly over the sushi bar without waitstaff, the restaurant must comply with all requirements for a full-service bar as outlined in the village’s zoning ordinance.

Trustee Adam Borrelli presented the item, which passed as part of the board’s unanimous consent agenda.

The board also approved a parking adjustment for the shopping plaza. The addition of The Orange Hat brings the total number of required parking spaces for the outlot to 128, while only 90 are available. The adjustment allows the existing 90 spaces to serve all businesses in the plaza. The plan commission found the existing parking to be sufficient based on the varied hours of operation among the tenants.