Business Spotlight: Have a Slice of Community

At Jo’s Gather’n Place, the person at the next table might be a line worker or a secretary – or an author and CEO dining with a university president.

Jack Stack, president and CEO of SRC Holdings Corp. and author of “The Great Game of Business,” loves to take visitors to Jo’s Gather’n Place. Not long ago, that’s where he says he hosted the head of a state flagship university.

“It’s the type of place where the trades meet the academics,” he says. “It’s a salt-of-the-earth place with an incredibly diverse group of people.”

That’s exactly the kind of place owner Jolene Eddington wanted to establish when she opened it 25 years ago. Eddington came from another restaurant, the Repair Shop Restaurant and Saloon at 2251 E. Kearney St., which closed at nearly the same time. The Repair Shop’s customers followed her, and Eddington made sure to offer their favorite dish, fried walleye, continuing a Walleye Wednesdays tradition.

The walleye – panko-encrusted and seasoned – is a perpetual weekly special at Jo’s, at $13.95 with fried potatoes, navy beans, cornbread and coleslaw on the side.

Each day brings its own special or two, with meatloaf on Monday for $10.95 and all-you-can-eat fried chicken on Tuesday for $14.95, both served with sides.

Friday’s offering is a steak dinner – a 6-ounce sirloin cooked to order, with a salad, baked potato and Texas toast, priced at $13.95. Customers may opt to add a side of shrimp for $5.

“We probably serve 60 steaks on a Friday,” Eddington says.

She added she gets her steaks cut specially for her, and they are fresh – never frozen. Even the country-fried steaks are made from scratch, and the chicken strips are made to order, she says.

Stack says the restaurant has a big menu, and everything on it is delicious.

“Even their grilled cheese is really good,” he says, noting it includes four cheeses. “And you always get some incredible dessert that sounds so good you can’t eat it.”

Sissy Oliver, Eddington’s stepdaughter, works the kitchen and has been around the restaurant since she was small.

“We’ve got a good team,” Oliver says. “I like what I do, and people really enjoy Jolene’s food.”

Oliver is known for her meatloaf and moves 30 pounds of it every Monday. Eddington says her favorite dish of Oliver’s is her baked chicken with homemade chicken gravy.

“I do enjoy when people tell me they really had a great lunch and they can’t wait to come back,” Oliver says.

Regulars
Oliver and Eddington say they have many regulars, some who come every day, and they know them and know what they like. An example: One customer comes in and orders a BLT “Judy’s way,” meaning open-faced on rye, served dry, with more lettuce than bacon.

And then there’s Mark, who enjoys half a chef’s salad but with all turkey, no ham. When the order comes back, Oliver says, the person working the kitchen will say, “This must be for Mark” and will know just what to do.

Eddington says many of her regulars check in with her and tell her when they’re going to be absent for vacation or other reasons, and if they don’t show up, she checks on them.

She adds that the restaurant draws all kinds of customers – including some very wealthy folks from Hickory Hills and some who are fast-food workers, but just about anybody might be found enjoying a plate of chicken livers and gizzards (which she admits is not her favorite dish, though it’s a big hit with many).

Additionally, families come in with their kids, and customers have celebrated birthdays, weddings and funerals on the premises, she says. Every Monday for about 13 years, there’s an open mic – “And we’re packed,” Eddington says.

Since the start, Eddington says, customers have felt like family, whether they were the people she got to know so well at the Repair Shop or people who discovered the place along the way.

She remembers Sept. 11, 2001 – not even a year after she opened – when the tragic events were unfolding and customers filed in to sit together and talk. Many of them didn’t have to go back to work that day, and so they watched the news and took it all in, providing comfort to one another.

“When it hit, that was one of my busiest days ever,” she says. “People were just coming in and sitting with other people they didn’t even know because of that.”

Team approach
The restaurant does the bulk of its business at lunch, Eddington says, but it is also open for dinner. Hours are 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. most days and Saturdays 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. It is closed Sundays.

Eddington says she and three other members of the team – Oliver and Michael Hughes in the kitchen and Kayla Justus waiting tables – have been a team for well over a decade within the restaurant that employs nine.

“It’s kind of like a family-oriented staff – everybody’s helpful, front and back of the house,” Oliver says.

She adds that customers know them all, even those in the kitchen, and are not afraid to walk back and thank them for their meal.

Eddington says there’s no special strategy to fostering a family atmosphere.

“The good food, knowing everybody’s names – that’s what does it,” she says.

According to Stack, Eddington herself is the secret sauce.

“She’s a very, very hard worker,” he says. “You feel like you’re part of the entrepreneurial enterprise that she’s building – she makes you feel like you’re part of the business.”

Attorney Ashley Norgard is a regular who says she loves meeting colleagues and friends for steak dinner Fridays, and she alerted Springfield Business Journal to the fact that the restaurant was celebrating its 25th anniversary.

“It’s totally an under-the-radar jewel,” she said in an email. “On any given day, it’s packed with a motley mix of both business executives and folks in work boots and high-vis.”

The restaurant occupies a corner of a shopping center at 2931 E. Chestnut Expressway, near the intersection with U.S. Route 65, and plenty of people drive past, many without knowing what they’re missing.

Norgard adds, “Going to Jo’s is like eating at your favorite aunt’s house. The food is delicious, and you immediately feel at home. It has been my favorite restaurant in town for years. It’s no surprise Jo has led this thriving business for 25 years.”