THE SHOT TROOPS: Inside the Illinois National Guard’s inoculation mission. PAGE 8 TECH TAKEAWAY: Meet the CEO of software maker Relativity. PAGE 6 CHICAGOBUSINESS.COM | MARCH 1, 2021 | $3.50 DINING POST-PANDEMIC Some of your favorite spots haven’t made it. Others have changed chefs, menus and decor. BY ALLY MAROTTI IF ALL GOES WELL, Chicago restaurants could soon increase capacity to 50 percent after almost three months without indoor dining. But as vaccines ramp up, diners making their way back downtown will nd that not all of the business crowd’s fa- vorites have survived, and that the survivors bear scars. Menus have been changed, interiors revamped, fur- loughed sta have decamped to other locales. Tables will See RESTAURANTS on Page 21 Nicole Flevaris, owner of Kinzie Chophouse JOHN R. BOEHM R. JOHN Discover Card gets squeezed on 2 fronts While consumers oat less debt from month to month, new competitors cut in on a lucrative line of business BY STEVE DANIELS cover relies heavily on consum- er borrowing for its revenue and Discover Financial Services pro t growth. A GALA created the card that pays you Early fears that the pandemic back, but the credit card lender would result in mass borrower would like more of its custom- defaults haven’t come to pass. ers to stop returning the favor so It’s a far more preferable prob- SEASON much. lem to have, but the issue for For the rst time in years, Discover now is that cardhold- credit card loan balances are ers are paying down their debt LIKE NO OTHER dropping at Riverwoods-based more rapidly than the company Discover. Unlike some larger expected. card rivals such as JPMorgan Discover also is confronting a Chase and Citigroup, which fa- new product that is fast gaining The pandemic moved 2020’s fundraising season from vor customers who pay their big ballrooms to small screens. PAGE 12 balances o each month, Dis- See DISCOVER on Page 22 NEWSPAPER l VOL. 44, NO. 9 l COPYRIGHT 2021 CRAIN COMMUNICATIONS INC. l ALL RIGHTS RESERVED JOE CAHILL REAL ESTATE How Pritzker This fast-selling and Welch midcentury has can gain public an indoor pool. confidence. PAGE 4 PAGE 23 P001_CCB_20210301.indd 1 2/26/21 4:20 PM 2 MARCH 1, 2021 • CRAIN’S CHICAGO BUSINESS GREG HINZ South Side Walgreens aims to ON POLITICS boost vaccine access for locals When ‘closing corporate A location in Bronzeville turned o its online scheduler to make sure nearby customers are given priority loopholes’ goes wrong BY ALLY MAROTTI are far less likely than whites to have been vaccinated, despite the heard a pretty hot rumor turer who had been eyeing Melanie Owens, a pharma- fact that COVID-19 has dispropor- the other day. On check- Illinois for an expansion. cy manager at a Walgreens in tionately aected people of color. Iing, it proved to be wrong, Now, “I think they’ll end up in Bronzeville, was a little uncertain e Illinois Department of Pub- or at least premature. But it southern Wisconsin.” about getting the vaccine. lic Health reported last week that nonetheless contained a gold e tax hike only adds to It was January and the rollout of the more than 2.5 million doses BLOOMBERG nugget of truth at its core. the “ticking (scal) bomb” was new. She says the development administered in the state, 68.7 per- e rumor was that Chi- that is Illinois’ $144 billion in process felt rushed, and she didn’t cent have gone to white residents— Federal Retail Pharmacy Program. cago mortgage mogul Victor unfunded pension liability trust information coming from the who account for just 61 percent of e program, which the Biden Ciardelli, concerned about here, says another relocation Trump administration. But then the state’s population. Meanwhile, administration announced in Feb- soaring taxes and other consultant, Boyd Co.’s Jack Owens started picking up extra 7.9 percent of the doses have gone ruary, sends doses directly to its matters, had quietly moved to Boyd. Combined, his clients, shifts at vaccine clinics. to Black residents and 8.3 percent pharmacy partners. e allotment Miami and soon will take with including some now in Illi- Walgreens was one of the phar- have gone to Hispanic residents, is separate from the doses the state him the headquarters of his nois, increasingly are looking macy partners chosen by the fed- who account for 14.6 percent and gets from the federal government. It company, Guaranteed Rate. at places such as Texas, he eral government to vaccinate work- 17.5 percent of the population, re- is also separate from the doses set Ciardelli’s response when I says. ers and residents at long-term care spectively. aside for long-term care facilities. got him on the phone: No. In fairness to Pritzker, facilities. Owens didn’t even make Walgreens said when the pro- Although he has been spend- Illinois is not the only state it through her rst shift before the ‘SLOTS WERE FILLING UP’ gram launched that the partici- ing time in Florida lately, to be moving its tax struc- residents, excited about building Retail pharmacies, including pating pharmacies would be con- neither he nor the company ture in his proposed direc- immunity to COVID-19, changed Walgreens, have been vocal about centrated in areas hit hardest by has moved there and doing so tion, at least in part. For her mind. their ability to help with a more eq- the pandemic, to help with a more would involve a lot of trouble. instance, according to the “I think I vaccinated maybe 20 uitable rollout. Pharmacies are em- equitable rollout. In Chicago, they But, he added, if Chicago’s Tax Foundation, a Washing- people before I was like, ‘OK, may- bedded in communities and often were located largely in the South crime rate keeps soaring and ton research group that’s be I should give this a chance,’ ” she act as the main health care access and West sides. people keep eeing the city, fairly conservative but also says. point for people. ey have exist- Walgreens is preparing to start then, “the mismanagement of frequently cited in economic Owens was vaccinated that day. ing relationships with communi- administration of second doses government is a real prob- circles, only 16 states grant She says that as someone admin- ty members, which could make it through that program, says spokes- lem.” the full accelerated depre- istering the vaccines, she felt a easier to get people in for a vaccine. woman Erin Loverher. e phar- I’d call that a warning. ciation that’s now in federal responsibility to protect herself e Walgreens Owens’ works at macy has been receiving about And that’s the context of that tax code. Pritzker’s proposed and the patients. Seeing her opt in has leveraged its relationships with 480,000 vaccines a week through big $932 million tax hike on change there is worth $214 also swayed another Black woman customers in its vaccination eorts. the program to distribute nation- business Gov. J.B. Pritzker is million a year. working as an administrator at the When it started scheduling wide. About 39,300 were coming to pushing as part of his pro- On the other hand, the clinic to get her vaccine, too, Owens COVID vaccines last month, it Illinois each week. posed 2022 budget. largest change the governor says. closed the online scheduling portal. ose numbers are expected to Pritzker calls the proposal wants—capping deductions At Owens’ Walgreens location in ey “had us make our own rise as soon as the week of March 8, “closing corporate loopholes.” of corporate losses at $100,000 Bronzeville, she hasn’t experienced schedule based on our normal as second doses become available, Arguably that’s true, at least a year for three years, worth many customers that are hesitant customer base,” Owens says. “Slots Loverher says. She did not have ex- in the sense that any tax $314 million a year—would about the vaccine quite yet. So far, were lling up with people that act numbers. break I don’t receive must be absolutely make Illinois an it’s just people that are eager to get weren’t in the community, (who e Biden administration recent- someone else’s undeserved outlier relative to other states, it, wondering when they can sched- were) just trying to get the shots ly announced that it would increase loophole. But the proposal says Taxpayers Federation ule an appointment. anywhere.” doses owing through the Federal comes at the very time when of Illinois President Carol State and city ocials are also e pharmacy was one of 450 Retail Pharmacy Program to 2 mil- Portman. Such un- concentrating on an equitable vac- Illinois Walgreens that began ad- lion from 1 million. WHAT’S ON THE TABLE NOW JUST predictability is what cine rollout. But so far, state data ministering vaccines over Presi- really irks business, shows Black and Brown Illinoisans dents Day weekend, as part of the Stephanie Goldberg contributed. ISN’T VERY SMART. she says. Beyond that, according to population and jobs have the Tax Foundation, Pritzker’s begun to drop not only state- changes overall would reduce wide but in the metropolitan Illinois’ business-tax-climate area, and at a time when the rating from a weak 36th of the state refuses to confront its 50 states to an even sadder ever-rising pension debt. Not 39th. to mention Chicago’s murder What in some ways is most At Wintrust, your banker knows you.