One of Belleville’s oldest restaurants emerges from COVID-19 shutdown with new owner
A small metro-east diner chain founded in the 1930s could have died an unceremonious death due to the coronavirus.
But the last remaining location, Moore’s Restaurant in Belleville, will stay in business, thanks to a local resident with a sentimental side who bought it in the middle of a pandemic.
“A staple of Belleville was about to go away forever,” said Jimmy Johnson, 50. “So I thought about it long and hard, and I thought if I could save it, I would.”
Former owner Don Moore had planned to retire in 2020 after more than 50 years with the family business. He was talking to potential buyers when COVID-19 hit, then Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker issued a stay-at-home order in March.
Selling a restaurant under such circumstances seemed like a long shot.
“I didn’t want to (close permanently), but at 79, I was ready to retire,” said Don Moore, whose father, the late William “Red” Moore, opened his first restaurant, Moore’s Grill, in 1935 in Granite City.
East St. Louis diner burned
The Moore family expanded in later years and operated up to three restaurants at a time in Granite City, East St. Louis, Cahokia, Mascoutah, O’Fallon and Belleville.
The first East St. Louis location on Collinsville Avenue burned in the late 1950s, according to a history compiled by Don Moore’s sister, Carol Watson, of Kankakee. It was replaced by a second location at Fifth and Missouri.
Watson worked as a waitress for only a week before determining she wasn’t cut out for it. In contrast, Don Moore joined the business after college in the 1960s and never left.
“(I was) proud of my brother the way he was able to handle the restaurant from cooking to serving to hiring to selling to knowing just what to do,” Watson wrote. “He was born to do this.”
Watson also recalled the day her father was robbed on his way to the bank in East St. Louis. He went home and spent the rest of the day with his “No. 1 listener,” wife Opal Moore, who had worked for him as a waitress before they got married.
“Neither beer nor any kind of (alcoholic) beverage was ever sold at the restaurant,” Watson wrote. “When a cigarette machine was delivered ... Dad did not accept it.”
Sir William’s was short-lived
The Moore family opened the Belleville restaurant in 1985. Its building at 7309 Old St. Louis Road had formerly housed the legendary Wainwrights burger joint.
“We called it ‘Sir William’s’ for six or seven months,” Don Moore said. But that name wasn’t very popular, so it was changed to Moore’s Restaurant.
Watson describes it as a “true American diner” in a flyer to mark the 85th anniversary of the family business this year.
Now the torch has been passed to Johnson, director of maintenance at BRIA Health Services rehab and skilled-nursing center in Cahokia, and Trish Starks, his girlfriend of six years who formerly worked for Don Moore as a cook.
Johnson bought Moore’s on July 1, less than a week after restaurants were allowed to reopen for indoor dining under the Restore Illinois plan for restarting the economy. Starks took over as manager.
“So far, it’s gone very well,” Johnson said. “... We’ve not changed the menu, but we revamped it to make it look better. We’ve not changed the ingredients or the procedures for making the food. We wanted it to be original.”
Johnson and Starks did have to educate themselves about coronavirus health and safety guidelines and put them in place before reopening.
Breakfast served all day
Moore’s is open from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. seven days a week. It serves breakfast all day, as well as sandwiches, burgers, salads, soups, desserts and daily specials.
At least some of the restaurant’s regulars have returned, despite COVID-19 fears.
“It’s a business that has been here for a very long time, and people like it,” Johnson said. “They love it. ... The people who have been patronizing us have told us that they don’t want us to close.”
Don Moore has promised his old customers that he’ll stop by now and then to see them, but it won’t happen for a few weeks.
Two days after selling the restaurant, he underwent unexpected double-bypass heart surgery. Doctors had discovered a problem during a stress test.
“The nurse was here this morning,” Don Moore said Monday. “She said I was doing fine.”
This story was originally published July 23, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
