Rochelle area's Grubsteakers restaurant begins cleanup from tornado damage

KINGS – A large rack containing spices near the rear of what had been Grubsteakers Restaurant remained undisturbed. Fifty feet away, a semitrailer was on its side.

That spice rack was one of the few things left standing after a tornado demolished the landmark bar and restaurant 6 miles north of Rochelle on Thursday evening.

Slot machines were tossed out of the bar area, coming to rest alongside the semi and other damaged vehicles.

The driver of the semi, Tod Carlock of Mount Morris, was one of 12 people who sought shelter in the basement of Grubsteakers, at the corner of state Routes 64 and 251. None of them was seriously injured, but each had to be helped out after part of the building fell over the basement exit.

Grubsteakers was just one spot in Ogle County where area fire department search-and-rescue teams were kept busy after a tornado roared along a northeasterly path from Ashton toward Fairdale, where one person was killed and many homes were destroyed.

The tornado, estimated to have been about a mile wide, hit the restaurant at 7 p.m. Thursday.

“The whole thing was over in a minute and half,” Carlock said. “You didn’t hear a roar or anything like that. It was more like a heavy wind.”

Carlock, a driver for Meyer Trucking in Mount Morris, was on his way home after making a delivery in Minnesota. He had had a tire blow out on Interstate 39, about 4 miles from Grubsteakers, at 4:30 p.m.

“I limped in here and called a mechanic,” Carlock said. “He got it fixed and left. I waited another 5 minutes to do paperwork. I went to pull out and was staring into the eye of the storm.”

Carlock said he immediately threw his semi in reverse and backed it up about 100 feet behind Grubsteakers.

“I knew exactly what was going to happen,” Carlock said. “I wanted to put the truck away from people and have the building in front for a wind block. Then I ran inside to seek shelter.”

Huddled with the other 11 employees and customers, Carlock waited out the storm, listening as the building was being demolished above them. Some prayed, others silently hoped their lives would be spared.

“When I finally got out, I started laughing when I saw my truck,” Carlock said. “It was flipped over and twisted like a tin can. I knew it was going to be trashed. In a situation like this, what else can you do but laugh?”

The semi was thrown 50 feet in the direction opposite from where the tornado had traveled. A tree limb was lodged in the cab and the fiberglass trailer body, which had an empty load, was split apart.

Grubsteakers suffered a similar fate, taking a direct hit from the storm, with damage all around. Previously known as the Sipe’s Corner gas station/restaurant, it had been a fixture with famers and travelers alike since the 1940s. For at least three decades, it has been called Grubsteakers.

One of those rescued from the restaurant, Raymond Kramer, 81, told Chicago's WLS-TV they were trapped for 90 minutes before emergency crews were able to rescue them, unscathed.

"No sooner did we get down there, when it hit the building and laid a whole metal wall on top of the doors where we went into the storm cellar," Kramer said. "When the tornado hit, we all got a dust bath. Everyone in there got shattered with dust and debris falling out of the rafters."

Surveying the damage was insurance agent Wayne Reising of Oregon. His agency has insured the restaurant for the past 10 years.

“It a total loss,” said Reising, who remembers the venerable restaurant from as far back as the 1970s, growing up in nearby Rochelle.

– The Associated Press contributed to this report.