Splendor in Riviera one last time before closing
NIGHT LIFE | Owners plan grand sendoff for Rt. 66 restaurant
Spare time has been rare for Peggy Kraft over the years.
When she isn't preparing thousands of meals at the Riviera Restaurant on Route 66 in Gardner, she listens to opera or drives to nearby Joliet to see her favorite singer, Englebert Humperdinck, perform at the Rialto Square Theatre.
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Riviera on Route 66
The Riviera has been her stage.
And the curtain is about to fall.
The Riviera, which opened in 1928, will close on New Year's Eve. The old joint is too much for Kraft, 85, and her husband, Bob, 84.
Only the second owners of the restaurant, they bought the white-framed, baby-blue trimmed roadhouse in 1972. The Riviera is nestled in a two-acre grassy ravine in Gardner (population 1,300) about 30 miles south of Joliet. Over the years it has hosted Gene Kelly, cowboy Tom Mix and Al Capone, recognized in the funky men's bathroom with a poster that reads: "Al Capone passed gas here in 1932."
That sounds like a Bob Kraft joke. It is no joke, though, that former Gov. George Ryan dined with his family at the Riviera two weeks before he went to prison.
The Riviera will go out with a bang, at least by Gardner standards. Folk singer Whisperin' Joe will perform road songs at 8:05 p.m. Peggy will serve up her homemade spaghetti and fried chicken along with the New Year's Eve special of barbecued ribs. Bob will show off his trademark bow tie one last time. If there's any food left, the restaurant will be open on New Year's day.
Around 5 p.m. last Saturday, Peggy entered the restaurant from the upstairs apartment she shares with Bob.
It was a grand entrance, a Maria Callas from the country. Peggy wore a cap that read, "Retired -- Don't Ask Me to Do a Damn Thing." She smiled. The Riviera was packed and dinner reservations were long gone. People wanted to sample a taste of history one last time.
"I can't do this anymore," Peggy said. "I peter out by noon. Bob tends bar in the daytime."
Peggy said everything will be auctioned off if a buyer is not found by April. One area restaurant operator is looking at the property. The place needs work. Part of the downstairs bar was flooded with water from the nearby Mazon River.
"If you can't pound a nail, you don't want a place like this," Peggy said.
That has always been part of the Riviera's charm. The bar originally was a coal miners' payroll office. Later, a small Methodist church building was brought in and added to the bar to form the 159-seat restaurant. It's like a good marriage: two independent ideas working as one. The restaurant and bar are in the basement and the kitchen is upstairs.
Orders are delivered to the kitchen on clothespins attached to a line. The clothesline pulley is counterbalanced by a World War I mortar shell. Peggy makes 32 quarts of her secret spaghetti sauce (beef, pork, tomato, green peppers, celery, onions and more) every week. By hand. Regulars buy the sauce to take home.
Near the entrance are handout cards where regulars can maintain a long list of their medical records, "Compliments of Riviera Restaurant."
John and Lenore Weiss, Route 66 preservationists who live in nearby Wilmington, led a group of 40 volunteers who restored the white turn-of-the-century streetcar behind the restaurant. In 1932, the horse-drawn streetcar morphed into a roadside diner, although it does not function today. The streetcar has a book of signatures of Route 66 fans from Australia and Japan, and one from this summer: Paul McCartney. The streetcar will remain if the restaurant remains. If no buyer is found, the streetcar will move to downtown Gardner.
"Just a couple of minor things need to be done with the Riviera," John Weiss said. "It could still be run as a restaurant. The character is the same. Maybe some of the outside signs would be changed."
"There's a lot of nice talkers and characters along 66," John Weiss said. "But Bob and Peggy have created such a family atmosphere. And it hasn't changed."
Bob and Peggy are originally from the South Side. They have no children except Peggy's son from a previous marriage. From 1947 to 1982, Bob owned Club Avalon taverns at 82nd and Dobson, and 79th and Luella. He imported the current bar at the Riviera from one of his Club Avalons.
Bob met Peggy at his Club Avalon on 79th Street. Their life journey never got them to the real Riviera, but generations of diners have come to love their extraordinarily real deal.