PEORIA MAGAZINE June 2023

DISH AND DRINK

AT GATOR’Z, CUSTOMERS GOBBLE UP THE FARE The popular restaurant is the only business in tiny LaRose, but it’s a traffic generator

BY PHIL LUCIANO

I n opening Gator’z Pub & Grill, Deb and Curt Walin didn’t just start a business. They started a business district. Welcome to LaRose, population 98, and the one-stop commercial strip known as Gator’z. “There's nothing else,” said Mayor Jonathon Price, chuckling. “Well, the post office.” LaRose is a spot in the road – and not a very wide spot – along Illinois Route 89. It sits amid the crop fields of Marshall County, home to but 11,663 residents. The county seat is Lacon (population 1,878), while the big city is Henry with a whopping 2,320 residents. Which is to say that around these parts, there’s no such thing as a cus tomer base. Further, LaRose hasn’t had any commercial trade since the grain elevator shut down three years ago. “There’s not much here,” Deb Walin said. For the couple, it took a lot of con fidence to open a business, especially in the fickle restaurant trade, when

you’re the only game in town and thus have to become a destination spot. So far, the plan is working, much to the delight of LaRose. “It’s great for us,” the mayor said. “They’ve done a lot of work on the building.” And how. The Walins bought a dilapidated building – the first floor had fallen into the basement – and turned it into a slick, modern pub. As one new customer recently gushed, “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear I was in Peoria Heights or the Chicago suburbs!” COZY IN THE KITCHEN Deb, 63, and Curt, 64, have dabbled in the restaurant trade before. They wed in 1997, and 10 years later started their first Gator’z in her native Varna, four miles south of LaRose. Curt, a welder by trade, got the nickname “Gator” in his home state of Florida, though neither will say exactly why. “It was from driving crazy,” she said with a smile. Deb cooked up a menu by trial and

error, based on what they enjoy. “I like to eat,” she said with a grin. “We like food.” They ran the business until 2007, when they moved to Florida to take care of an ailing relative. Two years ago, they decided to move back to Varna, in part to look after another relative. The couple wondered if maybe they could give it another go with a bar and grill. From Florida, they spotted an online ad for a shuttered shop in LaRose, which at the time had no businesses. Years ago, Smiley’s had enjoyed a long run as a supper club, renowned for ribs and packing ‘em in from miles around. But by 2021, Smiley’s had become a distant memory, its former building boarded up and falling down. Across the street sat the place un der consideration by the Walins. Built in 1871 as a grocery, the structure last had functioned in 2011 as an office. A decade passed and the taxes became delinquent. Having seen only exteri or photos of the structure, the Walins wondered about the wisdom of launch ing the lone business in a small town.

16 JUNE 2023 PEORIA MAGAZINE