ST. CHARLES – The former Catholic church building that became a restaurant in downtown St. Charles will soon find yet another identity.
Last weekend, Onesti's Dinner Club, 18 N. 4th Street, closed its doors for good. Owner Ron Onesti said Sunday marked the final day of business for the restaurant after a little more than two years of operation.
"I achieved what I set out to do there," said Onesti, president of Des Plaines-based Onesti Entertainment Corporation. "We provided great food and a lot of lasting memories for people.
"But I decided that I needed to dedicate more of my time to my other endeavors."
Onesti, whose company also operates the Arcada Theater, opened Onesti's Dinner Club in the fall of 2008 to provide a restaurant counterpart to the theater in downtown St. Charles.
Onesti chose to open the restaurant in the former St. Patrick's Catholic Church, which had been renovated years before to become a restaurant. Before Onesti bought the building, it had been known most prominently as 18 North.
Onesti said the restaurant did well when it was open, even as business at restaurants declined generally.
"It's the ironic thing: It did too well in a lot of ways," Onesti said. "It became such an extension of me personally that it got to the point where it either became my life's calling, or I would have to move on."
Onesti said he chose to move on, as he has begun devoting more time to television-related pursuits, including promotion of the "Godfathers of Comedy" show. The concert, featuring some of the top Italian-American stand-up comedians, was filmed at the Arcada recently and will air on Showtime.
He said a tour is in the works, as well.
He also said he is in talks to develop a show with a cooking network he would not name.
Those pursuits would have caused the restaurant's quality to suffer, he said, so he preferred to shut the restaurant down.
Some of the staff from the restaurant have been reassigned to other jobs within his company, Onesti said, but most lost their jobs.
Onesti said he is in talks with a few groups interested in purchasing the building, and some of them are discussing opening a new restaurant there.
"But there are no official plans yet," he said.
