Even though there is no place to dine-in, Skuddlebutt’s customers still sometimes come inside to look at the pictures.
Before being forced to close Dec. 15 for the upcoming Belmont Road vehicular underpass construction, the family restaurant had been continuously open for nearly seven decades. Owner Bill Gall had to forgo the bar and dining room, but he saved the photographs, hanging them in the back of his new location at 440 Ogden Ave.
| 1939 Year the Gall family opened its first restaurant at 5009 Belmont Road |
“We still have a lot of people who come in and just visit us,” Gall said. “Right near the end when we closed at Skuddlebutt’s at Belmont, we did a party for a family that covered four generations. My dad had done business with the grandfather. That period of time, that’s just huge.”
The restaurant has been trying to reinvent itself during the change. While no longer a place to eat out, it has been bringing in more business through a new delivery service, sending pizzas throughout Downers Grove and parts of Westmont, Oak Brook and Lisle. The restaurant also maintained a drive through service, which Gall said is popular with families.
Manager Danny Glover, who was a waiter at the Belmont restaurant, said they get about 100 pizza orders every Friday and another 100 to 200 orders from schools.
Meeting the demand is made more efficient by additional pizza ovens and new technology. Computers delegate drivers and records and save orders so repeat customers can be identified quickly. The place is well prepared for large orders with stacks of pizza boxes and trays covered in dough ready to cook.
“The way I would describe this building is kind of like a food factory,” Gall said. “We have 2,000 square feet of kitchen area.”
Gall said he has no immediate plans to reopen the restaurant for dining. Instead, he is focussing on expanding the catering business through building new relationships with churches and local schools. The restaurant has had a partnership with area schools for years, with groups buying pizza to sell at student events.
“What we like about working with the schools is as kids grow up, and they like your pizza, they’ll dictate to their parents,” Gall said.
The $52.7 million Belmont Road project is expected to begin construction next year. The goal of the plan, which began more than a decade ago, is to improve traffic and pedestrian safety.
