PEORIA, Ill. – A Peoria restaurant has officially closed its doors after 34 years in business.
The 50’s Diner in the Metro Centre had to shut down the family-owned business after a water main break last Friday.
“This is devastating…I mean to the community, not just to me, not just to the employees. I wanted another good 20 years here, you know,” General Manager and Co-Owner Kelly Wilcox told 25 News.
She adds, at least four to five water main breaks and sewer backups this year alone have drained the diner’s resources.
Wilcox says a myriad of issues led them to the conclusion that they could not afford to keep the restaurant open. Some of them included the weight of the most recent water main break, a slow recovery from COVID-19, the rising cost of food, energy bills, rent, and the minimum wage now at $15 an hour.
“We’ve struggled for quite a while, and this last time was on Friday, and they said they weren’t going to even work on it until Saturday, and then that boil order ran over into Sunday, and losing where we were at financially, losing out on a weekend is what took us out,” Wilcox says.
The 50’s Diner is inviting everyone to stop by Sunday at 10 a.m. to offer a final goodbye at a bring-your-own-coffee meet up at the diner.
Wilcox says they will also hold a garage sale, so people can stop by to buy memorabilia from the diner. She adds they’re looking into other options, but for now, a restart is not on the table.
