Louis’ Family Restaurant adapts, grows and stays in the family

Louis’ family will move the Louis’ Family Restaurant.

The popular Joliet restaurant soon will enter a new chapter as Louis Polimenakos’ sons, Nick and Mike, move the business to the former Bob Evans restaurant building, relocating from the familiar street-side location on Jefferson Street to one of the first spots off the Larkin Avenue interchange with Interstate 80.

The move is only five minutes away but will make a big difference, said Nick Polimenakos.

“It’s a complete upgrade,” Nick said. “The customers who heard about it are very happy about the move. Everyone’s saying, ‘We’ll be over there.’”

The move will mean more space, a more modern building, more parking, and more opportunity to build a carry-out business that grew as the restaurant adapted to COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.

Nick said the move is about a month away with a definite date still to be set.

Customer reaction to news of the move must be good to hear, since Louis’ Family Restaurant has a big base of business built up by Louis since he opened in 1992.

Friday was a typical mid-morning as the restaurant was crowded with late-breakfast and early-lunch diners as staff and the owners were busy getting orders ready for the dine-in crowd and take-out orders.

The pandemic forced a new way of doing business, said Mike Polimenakos, and one that would take into consideration people of his parents’ age, who were more vulnerable to the coronavirus.

“We had to come up with a plan,” Mike said. “We needed a plan that was safe-proof. We had to come up with a new plan of a business.”

The restaurant developed a carry-out/drive-thru business that carried it through the pandemic and continues to thrive.

Louis credits his sons with developing the carry-out system that perhaps saved the restaurant.

“They did some things that I couldn’t have done,” Louis said. “Otherwise, I could have been closed like other restaurants.”

Louis at 73 is retiring from the business when it moves to the new location. Louis is confident his sons will carry on.

“The main thing is they are young. They have the determination,” he said.

Determination is something they may get from their father, who came to Chicago from Greece in 1979 on a student visa to go to school at Roosevelt University. In Greece, Louis was a bookkeeper. In Chicago, he once ran a newsstand at the Merchandise Mart before launching a career as a cook that took him to several restaurants in the city and suburbs.

The restaurant he opened in Joliet was the first he ran himself. Louis took over space last occupied by the Skylark Restaurant, which had been there since the 1950s.

What Louis has learned about the restaurant business, he has passed on to his kids.

Nick said his father will become “a good consultant” to lean on, and both he and his brother have already learned much from him.

“You learn so much just by being around him,” Nick said, describing his father as a “private tutor” that provided lessons beyond what he could have learned in a college program. “He has so much knowledge and experience that being here you can learn so much more.”