The Hispanic owner of the popular Beat Kitchen restaurant, who was booted by City Hall out of his spot on Chicago’s busy Riverwalk, says Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, who is Black, and his administration, which is dominated by Black deputies and appointees, broke the law by allegedly rigging the process of selecting Riverwalk restaurants to ensure a Black-owned business landed the lucrative spot.
On Dec. 11, restaurateur Robert Gomez, through his company Beat Kitchen on the Riverwalk LLC, filed suit in Chicago federal court, accusing the Johnson administration of violations of federal civil rights law and the city’s own ordinances and rules.
The lawsuit specifically accuses Johnson’s City Hall of illegally soliciting a Black-owned restaurant business – in this case, Haire’s Gulf Shrimp – to submit a proposal for the space after the deadline had closed and then rigged the evaluation process to artificially boost Haire’s allegedly deficient proposal over Beat Kitchen’s, as part of keeping the mayor’s state goal of using city government to steer financial opportunities and resources to Chicago’s Black communities, residents and businesses, above others.
“As a minority-owned business, Beat Kitchen supports the City’s stated commitment to equity – equity grounded in transparency, consistent rules, and lawful process – that is, genuine equity,” Gomez and Beat Kitchen wrote in the lawsuit.
“What Beat Kitchen cannot support – and what federal and state law forbid but took place – is the substitution of race-influenced directives and considerations for the rule-based evaluation required by law…”
The lawsuit comes four months since Gomez first raised legal claims against the city of Chicago in court over the lost Riverwalk restaurant space lease.
In August, Beat Kitchen had filed suit in Cook County Circuit Court, at the time accusing the city of violating its ordinances and other infringements in denying Beat Kitchen’s lease renewal and giving the space to Haire’s.
According to court documents, Beat Kitchen had occupied for three years the space known as Riverwalk Location 2 at 91-95 East Riverwalk South, which is adjacent to the DuSable Bridge on Michigan Avenue. In that space, Gomez said Beat Kitchen built a thriving full food and beverage concession.
Gomez operates a primary space under the Beat Kitchen name in Chicago’s Roscoe Village neighborhood, as well as the Beat Kitchen Cantina concession at Navy Pier.
However, in 2024, Gomez said he lost the rights to the Riverwalk location at the conclusion of a lease concession proposal process, administered by the city through the Johnson administration at City Hall.
Ultimately, the concession was awarded to Haire’s.
Gomez, however, has maintained from the start that the concession proposal and review process was suspect and likely improper.
Gomez voluntarily withdrew his lawsuit from Cook County court just before the Thanksgiving Day holiday.
But Beat Kitchen followed that up with the filing in federal court, now also accusing the city of violating constitutional rights to equal protection and due process and of trespassing Gomez’s rights as a Hispanic business owner under federal civil rights law.
In the federal filing, Gomez and Beat Kitchen note that Mayor Johnson, who routinely draws attention to his status as a black man and accuses his opponents and detractors of anti-Black racism and bigotry, has also repeatedly publicly proclaimed his intent to secure power for Black people at City Hall and to direct lucrative opportunities and city resources to benefit what he has called “our people” – meaning, Chicagoans who are Black.
“… The Mayor also described Chicago as entering a period of ‘Re-Reconstruction,’ a term he used to characterize his administration’s economic and governmental priorities, and stated in now publicly available communications to aldermen and political allies that ‘our people need to hear more from us,’ reflecting a directive that policy outcomes reached and benefited Black constituents, including in contracting and procurement,” Beat Kitchen said in its federal lawsuit.
Such statements align with a host of other public statements, such as in interviews with Chicago’s black news publication, THE TRiiBE, or at black churches, in which Johnson has stated his intent to use his office to promote the interests of black Chicagoans, potentially at the expense of everyone else who live, work or run businesses in the city.
The complaint noted, for instance, that in an appearance at Apostolic Church of God in May 2025, Johnson told the congregation: “And one thing that I know for sure that I have to do over these next two years, every single dime that our people have been robbed of, I want to make sure that that is returned two- [or] three-fold, because I believe in something called pressed down, run over. That is what we have to make sure that happens within our communities.”
He has also repeatedly touted his decisions to hire and appoint Black deputies and officers to positions of power and influence at City Hall saying “our people hire our people” and that “the appointments were made so that ‘our people get a chance to grow their business.'”
In the complaint, Beat Kitchen noted that those tasked at City Hall with awarding the Riverwalk concession refused to award Beat Kitchen the concession, even though Beat Kitchen’s proposal allegedly was the only complete and viable proposal received within the proposal period.
Instead, Johnson’s City Hall reached out to Haire’s and then “arbitrarily scored” both Haire’s allegedly deficient proposal and Beat Kitchen’s proposal to ensure the black-owned Haire’s received the valuable Riverwalk concession.
Beat Kitchen asserts the alleged illegal racial discrimination by city officials is backed by evidence, including communications those officials indicating a clear desire to rig the process in favor of a black-owned business.
Beat Kitchen’s lawsuit names Haire’s as a defendant in the action. But Beat Kitchen said it did so only to ensure complete legal relief. They are not “presently” seeking any orders directing Haire’s to pay damages.
Rather, Beat Kitchen’s lawsuit is targeted squarely at City Hall and Mayor Johnson’s administration.
They are seeking court orders requiring the city to follow the city’s own ordinances and rules and in compliance with federal anti-discrimination law when evaluating such proposals moving forward.
They are also seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages against the city and the officials who allegedly discriminated against Gomez and Beat Kitchen in the Riverwalk concession proposal review process. Beat Kitchen said those “individual Defendants (acted) with discriminatory intent, malice, or reckless disregard of rights.”
Beat Kitchen is represented in the action by attorneys Jonathan D. Leach, William R. Klingler and Glenn A. Klingler, of the firm of Leach King Klingler Law, of Chicago.
