Will County Gazette

The Tinley Park village board recently met with representatives from some local businesses.

Tinley Park has a longstanding tradition of highlighting businesses in their community at the village board meetings. During the March 7 Tinley Park village board meeting, officials welcomed representatives of Ground Rules Jiu Jitsu and Gas N Wash to talk about their operations in the community.

Fran de la Vega and Dave McAndrew, co-owners of Ground Rules Jiu Jitsu, had been to several board meetings within the last year, coming to many last summer to get permits and approvals for their gym during the process of opening their business. The gym opened on Nov. 5, 2022, and since then the gym has gained close to 100 members. Members range in ages 2 to 62, with lots of adults and professionals. Ground Rules Jiu Jitsu has classes for adults in the evenings and morning classes for kids, with open mat sessions on Saturdays. People of all ages, skills and abilities can join a class or train.

De la Vega and his wife teach most of the classes. Both of them having trained in Jiu Jitsu for over a decade, starting as adults in their 30s. He shared how Dave and their other partner also started as adults, and how their wives are also starting to train. According to de la Vega, Jiu Jitsu is not a violent, fighting weapon to train in, like many think, but a healthy way to move and get in tune with your body, while learning self-defense skills that can apply to real-life situations.

"Just to echo that [from de la Vega], we have an excellent staff and board who are very pro-business and friendly," Tinley Park Mayor Michael Glotz said at the meeting. "So thank you to all our staff for supporting [Ground Rules Jiu Jitsu]. Looking forward to seeing [trustee William Brady] as an instructor there soon."

Alex and Laura were present at the meeting as representatives of Gas N Wash, with the Tinley Park site being their second location in the area. Gas N Wash offers a variety of convenience items, snacks and foods, drinks, fuel and car wash options. The business is located at 7451 W. 183rd St. Alex thanked the board for the opportunity, sharing that the business was growing extremely fast and that he was looking at opening a third location soon.