Capital for Chicago
restaurant operators.

Chicago is one of the great restaurant cities in America and one of the hardest to underwrite from a national pricing grid. The seasonality is severe — the kind of severe a California or Texas underwriter has no model for. January and February can erase 35 percent of revenue from a Lincoln Park or Lakeview neighborhood operator who depends on foot traffic. Then May arrives, patios open across Wicker Park, Logan Square, and West Loop, and the same restaurant can do 45 percent of its annual revenue between Memorial Day and the Air & Water Show. Cook County licensing, the Tied House restrictions on the alcohol supply chain, the BYOB tradition that shapes margin profiles for Pilsen and Lincoln Square — none of it is in the national model.

Goliath has been funding restaurants since 2009 with a deep Midwest book. Our underwriters read Chicago deposit statements every day and recognize how the Q1 winter dip, the patio-driven summer peak, the Lollapalooza weekend surge, and Bears or Bulls game-day rhythms all show up. We don't ask a Chicago operator to justify why January deposits look like a different business — we already know.

The neighborhoods we fund every week

The chef-driven restaurant row on the West Loop — Randolph Street, Fulton Market, and the surrounding blocks that have become one of the country's most significant fine-dining corridors. River North steakhouses and dinner concepts. The dense bar and restaurant cluster in Wicker Park and Bucktown. Logan Square independents on Milwaukee and Diversey. Lincoln Park neighborhood operators on Halsted, Clark, and Armitage. Pilsen family Mexican restaurants and the BYOB concepts that define the neighborhood. South Loop, Old Town, Lakeview, and Andersonville operators. We fund all of them on the same framework.

What our typical Chicago deal looks like

A West Loop operator drawing $100,000–$250,000 for a build-out refresh on Randolph Street. A Wicker Park gastropub bridging February with $40,000 against May patio revenue. A Logan Square independent replacing kitchen equipment with a same-day $35,000 wire. A Pilsen family operator pulling $75,000 to expand into the storefront next door. A Lincoln Park group consolidating stacked advances into a single 18-month structure. These are the deals we close most weeks for Chicago restaurants.