2Toots' plans to create jobs for veterans start strong in Glen Ellyn

GLEN ELLYN – With its shiny red booths that seat families enjoying classic luncheonette fare delivered by an electric toy train, it's hard to imagine a place more quintessentially American than 2Toots Train Whistle Grill of Glen Ellyn.

"It's a family-friendly, healthy eating destination location,” said Lynn Lowder, who co-owns the 2Toots parent company and its Bartlett restaurant with Dale Eisenberg and Mike Ventre.

It's fitting, therefore, that the eatery's founders are in the midst of introducing a new business model aimed at creating job opportunities for those who keep the country safe – America's veterans.

“They deserve a shot,” said Lowder, who is a Vietnam veteran and a former Marine himself. “Who else deserves a better shot?”

The trio hopes to establish 15 to 20 new 2Toots restaurants with veteran owner-operators along train lines in the Chicago area during the next two to three years, and is already considering Naperville, Geneva and Berwyn as potential target communities.

The Glen Ellyn location was recently sold to Army veteran Shaun Garry and his wife, Stacy. The pair officially took over managing the restaurant's day-to-day business last week, and 2Toots' three parent company owners will be licensed to sell franchises within the next three months, Lowder said.

2Toots of Glen Ellyn will hold an open house event to celebrate the new ownership this weekend, complete with prizes for kids and families.

With one million veterans unemployed in the U.S., one million soldiers coming off active duty in the next five years and 22 veteran suicides committed in America every day, Lowder said 2Toots wants to change the perception that the country's veterans are damaged goods, a problem with which Garry is all too familiar.

A Bensenville native and high school athlete, Garry worked for his father's contracting company after he graduated to raise money to send his siblings to college, before joining the Army in 2005 as a cannon crew member and later a supply sergeant.

Garry, a Purple Heart recipient, served 15 months in Iraq, where he survived five IED explosions, sustaining significant combat-related injuries, he said.

He returned from Iraq in 2008 and left the military the year after that.

2Toots is the first job he has held since then, after he learned about the opportunity through the Wounded Warrior Project.

The Wheaton resident, Glen Ellyn little league football coach and father of two started training with the restaurant six months ago and says he has enjoyed the experience so far, particularly how it has allowed him to open the door for fellow veterans.

“I don't want anybody to be unemployed for five years that are military men that served,” he said.

Lowder, Eisenberg and Ventre are trying in more ways than one to make sure that doesn't happen. They are in the midst of establishing a nonprofit called 1 Vet At A Time that will work with business influencers to encourage the hiring of veterans and assist in financing veteran entrepreneurs.

“We need a small business renaissance in America,” Lowder said.

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If you go

What: 2Toots Train Whistle Grill open house

When: 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday and Sunday

Where: 450 N. Main St.

What: Event includes train-themed prizes and the opportunity to meet 2Toots' new Glen Ellyn owners.