This Portage Park outpost has run since 1999 out of an unlikely home: a former funeral home at 4920 W. Irving Park Road, repurposed into a full-service restaurant without losing its distinct, almost chapel-like bones. The menu's anchor is the entraña, a skirt steak that national food program America's Best Bites once named the best in the country, served alongside Bandeja Paisa and a full menu of Colombian staples with vegetarian options worked in. Hoodline ranked Las Tablas the top Colombian restaurant in Chicago in a 2019 roundup, and Yelp's review count has climbed into the thousands over three decades in business — the kind of track record that outlasts trends.
The restaurant is now in the middle of a genuinely ambitious transformation: Campos is building a four-story, roughly 13,000-square-foot building on the site and two adjacent lots, about double the current structure's height, that will house a rebuilt restaurant, a Colombian cultural center with traditional events, live music, and dance classes, 18 apartment units, and dedicated tenant parking. She's targeted reopening the restaurant portion by winter with the full project wrapping by 2026 — a rare case of a neighborhood institution reinvesting in itself rather than just holding on. Hours run daily from noon, with Friday and Saturday service stretching to 11pm.
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