‘Not Just a Store:’ Resident’s new acai spot coming soon to downtown Skokie

Amy Feldman had lived in Skokie for just a few months before the pandemic hit.

As the ensuing years of shuttered businesses and gathering spaces dragged on, she looked around downtown Skokie, eager for places to reopen. Eventually, instead of waiting on others, she decided to create a place of her own — one that’s coming to the village this summer.

Hummingbird Hideaway, a new healthy casual restaurant with a focus on acai fruit bowls, smoothies and small bites, will open at 5118 Oakton St. this May. 

The eatery will channel Feldman’s previous experience as a culinary marketing executive, her passion for natural foods and her long-standing aspiration to own her own restaurant into a vacant storefront on the first floor of the Highpoint at 8000 North apartment complex. 

“I just want it to be a feel good business where people go, they feel good about what they’re getting, they feel good about the experience, they feel good about what they’re eating and they feel like they’re not alone, too,” Feldman said. 

“Like we are an extension of the community, not just a store within a city — that’s what we want to be,” she said.

Building out the restaurant space will require a “significant investment” of approximately $356,000 as its interior has “remained in a raw, unfinished condition since completion of the mixed use building in 2022” documents from a recent Skokie Village Board meeting state.

That is, in part, why the Village Board voted unanimously on Jan. 5 to provide Feldman a $45,600 grant from Skokie’s Downtown Tax Increment Financing Rehab Program, a financial incentive created to stimulate development in the area. 

Feldman said she grew up in a family of entrepreneurs, but many worked in the realm of industrial commodities. While she carried on their enterprising spirit, she picked up an affinity for food and started working in restaurants when she was 14, she said. 

After studying food marketing in college, earning a certificate in pastry skills from a culinary school and then a masters degree in business administration, Feldman went on to work for a major food distributor and big-name brands, including Pom Wonderful and Lifeway Kefir. 

During the six years she served as the vice president of food sales at Lifeway, a period in which she said the company rapidly expanded in value, Feldman recalled seeing an acai bowl restaurant during a work trip to Bentonville, Arkansas. 

She thought: If it could work in Bentonville, then why not Skokie? 

For those uninitiated, acai is a small, earthy-tasting purple fruit that grows on palm trees native to the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. Notably, hummingbirds migrate every year from Brazil and other parts of South and Central America to North America. 

As the period leading up to her departure from Lifeway in 2024 coincided with a “fitness journey,” Feldman said she started to prioritize healthy food and fitness. When she finally decided to launch her own venture, she decided to revolve it around the nutritious berry. 

Hummingbird Hideaway will primarily offer bowls of frozen and blended acai to which customers can add toppings, such as granola, vanilla yogurt and other fresh fruit. The store will also sell 10 different smoothies, oatmeal and protein-oriented items, like nut-buttered toasts or waffles. 

In a central location across from Village Hall and the Skokie Public Library, and walking distance from Madison Elementary and Lincoln Junior High schools, Feldman said she plans on being open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. to cater to the breakfast, lunch and after-school crowds. 

The grant Feldman obtained from the village will go toward, among other things, rehabbing the space’s concrete flooring, drywall, ceiling, paint, electrical work, plumbing and carpentry — all to help make the business feel “bright” and “cozy,” she said.  

As the Rehab Program grant is just one Skokie Downtown TIF District’s many instruments, the TIF has contributed to more than $275 million worth of private investment since the district was first established in 2005, said Rodney Tonelli, the village’s economic vitality manager.

Besides Hummingbird Hideaway, the downtown TIF district recently filtered $110,000 to Skokie Provisions, a culinary business set to redevelop a property, 8149 Lincoln Ave., and $150,000 to Ascione Bistro Skokie, 8006 Lincoln Ave. 

Feldman said she is excited about Hummingbird Hideaway’s pending opening, as well as providing a first job to some of her 8-10 staffers and on offering something special to Skokie.

“I looked at one point of doing a franchise  and I’m like, no. I don’t think that’s what we need here,” Feldman said. “I really think downtown Skokie is a lot about local.”

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