Little Village restaurant La Catedral Cafe says business returning to normal

Ten years ago, Ambrocio Gonzalez took a look at the stone building with the church-like turret and thought, this is never going to work as a Mexican restaurant.

He even considered covering the cream-colored stone work with orange and green paint.

But he and his business partner moved into the building at the corner of West 25th and South Christiana in the Little Village neighborhood — and it wasn’t too long before people were lining up, sometimes for two hours, to drink Gonzalez’s Mexican coffee and devour his chilaquiles.

Those hectic, happy days have returned to the popular La Catedral Cafe after months of agonizing worry and uncertainty during the pandemic.

“I feel like we are getting back to normal now. So we are very, very happy and very blessed,” Gonzalez said Friday morning, shortly after Gov. J.B. Pritzker, Mayor Lori Lightfoot and other dignitaries used the restaurant as a backdrop to talk about the post-pandemic recovery.