BLOOMINGTON, Ill. (WMBD) — La Gondola Spaghetti House in Downtown Bloomington announced it will be closing its doors this Saturday.
The restaurant located on the corner of South Main Street and West Oakland Avenue posted a sign on its door saying its last day at this location will be May 2. This is after the location has been open for 42 years.
“Totally breaks my heart. I was here at this store the day that it opened. I was 16 years old, and it’s one of the hardest things we have ever had to do,” said Richard LaHood, manager of the closing location.
LaHood says the reason for the closure is that surrounding programs like Home Sweet Home Ministries‘ “The Bridge” are a magnet for unhoused people, making business in the area unsustainable.
“We see him dropped off right in our corner, and we are the closest door to The Bridge,” said LaHood. “They can’t get in there because it’s blocked, so they need services, they need food, they need shelter, they need air conditioning or heat.”
“Just being this close to the new magnet of The Bridge, where people are coming in from all over. It’s made business here untenable.”
La Gondola Spaghetti House is supportive of HSHM’s mission, but since they are so close and because the non-congregate shelter is at capacity, they see a lot of unhoused people coming into the restaurant for food, shelter and/or a bathroom.
While the restaurant does what it can to help them, it has decided to close the location.
La Gondola will still have a presence in Bloomington, and plans to for the near future, but no longer at that location. They will be moving their employees over to their location on East Vernon Avenue and hope their customers will make the short drive to that location.
“We opened that one in 2000, on Towanda Avenue and Vernon Avenue. We’re going to be able to take all of our customers, hopefully all of our customers, certainly all of our employees, over to that location and take good care of us there,” LaHood said.
While the future may be uncertain if they will open a different second location in Bloomington, LaHood says the future looks bright.
“The future’s bright for La Gondola Spaghetti House. We’re more excited than ever,” he said. “I’m always excited about new opportunities. For right now, we’re doing everything we can just to make this transition, and we’re excited about having a place for all of our customers to go, not that far away in Bloomington, already.”
WMBD TV was first to report on this story. You can read the original story online at CIProud.com.
