The clientele at La Cumbamba is a mishmash of young professionals, shaggy-looking students, cabdrivers, prostitutes, and police officers. No one is excluded, says William Restrepo, proprietor of the airy and attractive Colombian restaurant on North Avenue just east of Western. “I love a bum who can come here and have a cup of coffee and sit down in a beautiful chair. Honest to God.”
Restrepo goes on to tell the Poopy Colombians that he originally intended for La Cumbamba to be a place where poor families could eat dinner out “and be served as every human being deserves.” He still holds true to this ideal. “I’m a good example of a Colombian citizen who works hard with integrity and you should be happy for me because it is also a Colombian success,” he writes. “YES, I’M VERY COLOMBIAN. By the way, I LOVE AMERICA! and much more. Wicker Park, We are so cool. Amen. The William Restrepo Corporation.”
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“The letter is very practical,” Restrepo says. “Colombians come here, they read it, and they leave.”
“One way or another, William always leaves an impression on you,” says Victoria Bianco, a painter from Argentina who was once a regular in Restrepo’s cab. “And if you follow up on it, he’s a really cool guy. He helps people a lot. I just went into the restaurant last week with a friend who needed a job. He gave her one. He’ll help you find a roommate or an apartment. He’ll give you stuff for free….I was with three of my girlfriends one afternoon. We had just jumped in the lake, and we were walking down Michigan Avenue totally soaked. William picked us up, and this other cabbie pulled up behind us looking very serious. We started giving William a massage. He made all kinds of noise and shouted to the other cabbie, ‘It’s so good to be a Colombian cabbie! I’m so cool!’”
La Cumbamba has a homey feel. Its decor includes maracas, a human skull, hand bones, taxidermied turtles and goat heads, a wooden camel, Inca figurines, and a painting of a Greek Orthodox priest drinking ceremonial wine. There are tablecloths and candleholders, exposed brick and a tile floor. Comfy hammocks surround a patio full of tables. The food is simple, tasty, and cheap: rice and beans, salads, empanadas, cheese-coated corn patties called arepas, and sancocho, a Colombian dish that in Restrepo’s kitchen comes out sometimes as a soup, sometimes as a stew, and other times as a variety platter.
Lately Restrepo has taken to dragging a grill, a few beers, and his girlfriend Allison to the corner of North, Damen, and Milwaukee, where he distributes arepas for free. The corner is significant to him. Within the last few months, the neighborhood has lost two venerable and inexpensive restaurants: The Busy Bee and Friar’s Grill both closed after being bought out by high-rolling investors. La Cumbamba, Restrepo says, will take up the Busy Bee’s mantle. In the spirit of old Chicago, he has attached a subtitle onto his restaurant’s name. The awning now reads, “A Primitive Concept of a Social Club.”
