The Hog Wild restaurant in Oak Lawn expanded to create a separate party room for diners and more privacy for customers playing slot machines.

The Village Board approved a sales tax rebate Tuesday that may reach $60,000 to help cover the cost, though the agreement was struck after the expansion.

The restaurant, which features barbecue pork chops, chicken and rib-eye steaks, walleye and other meals, opened in the Ranch Manor shopping at 111th and Pulaski, in February 2022.

About four months later, co-owner Rich Wagner said they realized they could use more space.

“There were a lot of requests for private dining and parties,” Wagner said.

He realized a room near the entrance where the restaurant had six gaming machines could become a banquet room.

So he expanded the 3,500-square-foot restaurant about 1,100 square feet into space next door that was unleased, building a bar and separate booths or pods for each of the six gambling machines.

Wagner said restaurant owners who put up partitions between their gaming machines during the pandemic learned patrons appreciated them not only because they prevented the spread of germs, but also because they gave the gambler some privacy.

With partitions, people could not see how much money a gambler had in their purse or wallet, how much they bet or how much they won.

Wagner, who is a contractor and real estate investor in addition to a restaurateur, has a carved wooden design in the walls between each gaming machine at Hog Wild, which allows a gambler to see through to the bartender, be aware of who else is around and hear the sounds when somebody wins on a machine, he said. But they are playing in private.

“It has gone over huge,” Wagner said.

On Tuesday, the Village Board approved an agreement that will rebate 50% of the sales tax Hog Wild generates for three years starting June 1, 2023.

Village staff estimates the business will receive between $18,000 and $20,000 in sales tax each year, based on a sales tax rate of 2.25%.

Oak Lawn Village Manager Tom Phelan said in about 2020, the staff talked to the owner of Ranch Manor about finding more tenants to occupy the center.

“It was only about 48% leased,” Phelan said.

The village was willing to offer incentives, such as sales tax rebates, to businesses that opened or expanded there.

“We wanted to fill the space,” Oak Lawn Mayor Terry Vorderer said.

Since then, not only has Hog Wild opened, but Birdie’s Sports Bar & Grill, as well, Phelan said.

Wagner said the economic incentive from the village was very important.

“It helps offset the expense,” of remodeling the space, which the tenant, not the property owner, pays for, he said.

In the agreement, the business is known as Hog Wild II.

The original Hog Wild, which opened in Midlothian about 29 years ago, and the Oak Lawn restaurant have different owners, Wagner said.

Kimberly Fornek is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.