Restaurant musical chairs: From Shoney’s to Main Street Brewing Co.

Q: Your recent answer explaining the history of Mungo’s restaurant made a few of us hungry to learn the same for the current 4204 Main Street Brewing Co. restaurant in Belleville.

A: After answering these two questions, I’d be willing to bet that the stress of trying to establish and run a successful restaurant must lead to an awful lot of indigestion for owners.

Originally opened as a Shoney’s in about 1988, the eatery closed in September 1993 and moved to Fairview Heights, where it took over the former Miss Hullings Cafeteria on Ludwig Drive. In its place, the Shoney’s folks tried a new restaurant concept called BarbWire’s Steakhouse & Saloon, but that chain went belly up financially in 1997.

For the next four years, the building sat empty until Amarillo’s Tex’s Steakhouse & Saloon opened in 2001. When that business struggled, owners revamped it briefly as the Gameday Sports Bar, but that, too, quickly gave way to Shawn Orloski and his Bully’s Smokehouse. When Orloski was unable to renegotiate a favorable lease in July 2005, he announced plans to move to Edwardsville, which led to the return of — would you believe it? — Amarillo Tex’s two months later.

But after Tex’s moseyed into the sunset for good in 2008, the building would remain vacant for the next six years despite suggestions in 2010 that a Pettifogger’s Bar and Restaurant might open there. Finally, Todd Kennedy began filling the parking lot again every night by opening his 4204 Main Street Brewing Co. on May 13, 2014.

Q: What has happened to the stars of the original “JAG” series? The only person I still see occasionally is Catherine Bell.

A: Just because you don’t see their faces on the screen doesn’t mean they have disappeared from view in Hollywood.

Take, for example, Patrick Labyorteaux, who played Andrew Garvey on “Little House on the Prairie” before finding new fame as Bud Roberts on “JAG.” After his days in the Judge Advocate General’s Corps, the now 50-year-old actor found spot roles on various TV series, including “CSI,” “Without a Trace” and “Dexter” along with movie parts in “Yes Man” and “In My Sleep.” But since 2011, he has made himself comfortable in the executive producer’s chair, first on “See Dad Run” and then “Divorced Family.” Recently, however, he started exercising his acting chops again, so you might spot him on “Castle” and “American Crime Story.” (And, no, there’s no truth to the urban legend that he lost a leg as his JAG character had.)

Both John Jackson and David James Elliott have stayed plenty busy, too. Jackson, 65, who played Rear Adm. A.J. Chegwidden, has appeared on more than a dozen TV series since his JAG days, including “Bones,” “CSI,” “Stalker” and “Rizzoli & Isles.” The 55-year-old Elliott, who once was chosen by People magazine as one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world, also has enjoyed a host of varied roles in the past decade, including “Mad Men,” “Scorpion,” and, most recently, as John Wayne in the biopic “Trumbo.” The father of two is still married to Nanci Chambers, who you may remember sometimes worked with him as Lt. Loren Singer on “JAG.”

Q: Would you please explain why Channel 5 breaks up during “Wheel of Fortune” and “Jeopardy”? The whole picture shimmies and shakes and the audio track is interrupted. Not a nice thing to do.

A: I’m hoping it was a temporary nuisance, because after receiving your question I watched both shows for several days on my TV and encountered no problems. Otherwise, I’d have to ask Vanna for an “N” — as in, no, I cannot explain it.

You didn’t mention how you receive your TV signal. If it’s through cable or satellite, I’d call your supplier and ask them why you might be experiencing this problem at those particular times.

If it’s with a rooftop antenna (like I use), I can only repeat what experts have said since the conversion to digital was completed seven years ago: Digital signals can be fickle because they are not as powerful. On particularly breezy days or during storms, my picture sometimes also breaks up on certain channels until calmer weather returns. But I can’t imagine it happening every day at those particular times. My only conjecture is that someone around you might be using some particularly powerful electronic equipment that may interfere with your signal. I’m wondering, too, if others in your neighborhood are experiencing the same problem.

I doubt if it would help, but if you have a digital TV, you might try running through the automatic channel setup protocol that someone probably had to use when you first hooked it up. You should find it in the first few pages of your operating guide. If the problem persists, you might try asking someone with an instrument that can measure strength of signal to reposition your antenna or ask an antenna expert to look into your particular situation.

Mea culpa: My sincere thanks to the sharp-eyed caller who caught my sloppy date gaffe in the recent Ronald Reagan-Jane Wyman column. In my mind, I knew they divorced in 1949, but after glancing too hastily at a fuzzy printout, I typed 1954, which was the year Wyman divorced Fred Karger for the first time. They remarried seven years later before splitting for good in 1965, ending her fifth and final marriage. As noted, Reagan married Nancy Davis in 1952.

Today’s trivia

After what killer/body snatcher was “Psycho’s” Norman Bates patterned?

Answer to Sunday’s trivia: Segundo Santos loved playing bridge at the Jockey Club in Montevideo, Uruguay — except for one thing: The late hours every night were taking a toll on his health. He tried switching to rummy and cooncan, which take less time to play, but found they involved too much luck and not enough skill and thinking. So in 1939, he and a friend developed a new game that mixed rummy and bridge and introduced it to their other friends. When asked what he called the new game, Santos realized he hadn’t even given it a name. So, as legend has it, he looked around hastily and spotted a small metal tray a waiter at the club had given them to hold the piles of cards needed for the new game. “Canastillo!” he replied, using the Spanish word for the tray. As it turns out “canastillo” is the diminutive form of “canasta,” the Spanish word for “basket,” which is what the new game ultimately was called. Within months, the game had spread through Argentina, Chile, Peru and Brazil before canasta fever invaded the United States in 1946.

This story was originally published March 15, 2016 at 8:33 AM with the headline "Restaurant musical chairs: From Shoney’s to Main Street Brewing Co.."