FINE DINING IN GREENUP?

“And into whatsoever city ye enter, and they receive you, eat such things as are set before you:” (Luke 10:8)

My last entry was about my bad experience of flying home from the Midwest on Northwest Airlines.  Today will talk about one of the more “interesting” (bizarre?) things that happened on the drive out to Missouri.  In the late afternoon of Wednesday the 16th, Amy and I crossed the border from Indiana into Illinois.  It was getting near supper time, and we were both pretty hungry.  At noontime, each of us had eaten an ice cream cone in western Ohio; by late afternoon we were really hungry.  There was a sign in eastern Illinois for “The Stockyards” restaurant.  It was not one of those 1950s style billboards.   It was one of the federal highway signs were they list the specific restaurants (just like they do for “lodging” and “fuel”).  Wow “The Stockyards”.  That sounded really good.  It had to be on the level of at least a Ponderosa steak house- maybe it was even on the level of Framingham’s Ken’s Steak House.  We drove off Interstate 70 at the designated exit.  Once off the highway things were very confusing.  We were in Greenup, Illinois.  To put it nicely, Greenup was a very rural and pretty poor community.  We drove around and couldn’t see any restaurant nearby.  Finally, I stopped and asked a guy mowing his lawn with a riding mower how to get to The Stockyards.  (His yard was not all that big and his house was small and a “dump”.  I wonder if it would even have been worth $40,000.)  He gave us directions.  The restaurant was about a mile away, in the middle of downtown Greenup.  Yes, there is a downtown Greenup.  Do you remember downtown Cicely, Alaska in Northern Exposure?  It was like that only a little worse.

Do you remember The Brick bar and restaurant in Northern Exposure?  The Stockyards was like that, only smaller and much dumpier.   Standing just outside the door was a man who looked remarkably like an elderly Art Carney.  With a hick accent he kept saying, “It ain’t 4:30 yet,” implying the restaurant was not open.  In fact, it was 5:15.  (Yes, we were now in Central time but we HAD factored in the difference.)  He opened the door.  The inside was not well lighted.  There were several round tables of the type you usually would see for the pancake breakfast at the V.F.W. hall.  In the middle of the room was a moveable wooden partition.  “Art Carney” poked his head to the left and said, “They’s eatin’ in there”.  On the left side were a few more of those “V.F.W. tables” with a few people seated.  There was also a large bar with a female bartender.  Our escort ordered up a drink.  We sat at a table.  Back to the Northern Exposure analogy, we were waited on by a pretty “Shelley Tambeau” type in her twenties.  Each of us ordered the hamburger platter.  The hamburgers were huge and very good.  The buns were uncooked, pasty and not good.   The “steak fries” were pretty good.  The sodas were filled with crushed ice and almost more like “slushies”.  I would love to see the photos www.ThisIsFramingham.com’s Michelle Swartz would have taken of this place were it possible for her to visit it!  This was NOT Framingham, however.  People were puffing away on their Marlboros and Parliaments like it WAS 1956!

Well, that was Greenup.  I’m sure you’re all making notes and planning a visit...or not...