A popular, decades-old Woodford County eatery is fully reopened after a November fire led to a prolonged closure.
Busy Corner in Goodfield started welcoming customers back into the building Thursday, four months to the day after the overnight blaze caused significant interior damage.
For owner Derek Vollmer, the timing could not have worked out much better.
“Once word got out, pretty much we have been very busy; all weekend has been great,” said Vollmer. “‘Pi Day’ [March 14, or 3-14] was on Friday, so we were able to sell about 300 pies. Then Saturday and Sunday, everybody was just thrilled to come out and be here. Then [Monday] was St. Patty's Day, so we had a great turnout for our corned beef and cabbage that we always do.
“We've just had a really good support from everybody getting back in here.”
Long known for its pies, the restaurant near the intersection of U.S. 150 and Illinois 117 – just north of the Interstate 74 exit – had to shut down after the fire shortly before Thanksgiving. Vollmer attributed the fire to cooking oils embedded in towels used for cleaning.
“We had washed them, we had dried them, and they had self-combusted,” he said. “It really was something that I'd never heard of, and the more I'm doing research, the more I'm finding that it's not that [known], but very common.”
Vollmer said the towels likely smoldered for as long as two hours before any flames broke out. While the fire itself was contained to a utility room, the smoke still wreaked havoc.
“It filled the whole restaurant, just packed full of smoke. When I got here first thing, I couldn't even go in, couldn't see in. It was solid smoke,” said Vollmer. “The entire utility room was a total loss. But it was amazing how bad the smoke damage ruined things. Everything – ceiling tile, insulation, all our electrical, plumbing – everything had to be replaced due to that.”
Vollmer said he’s taking steps to prevent this kind of fire from happening again.
“We've gotten more of a commercial washer extractor, using higher heat and more water,” he said. “All the standard washers and dryers are energy efficient, so they don't allow as much water in, so it doesn't get the grease out as well as it should. And then a dryer that has an extended tumble dry so it can actually cool down in the dryer a lot more before it gets taken out.”
He said they’re also making sure they replace the towels frequently, and looking for alternatives to soy-based cooking oils that tend to cause these types of incidents.
Vollmer, who was a teen when he started at Busy Corner as a dishwasher, has owned the business that dates back to 1947 for the last five years. He described his initial reaction to the fire as “a big shock.”
“It was kind of hard to see this all happen,” he said. “My first thought was, for one, everybody's OK so I was glad that nobody was hurt in it. But I wanted to make sure that I was able to take care of my employees through this time. That was probably my biggest fear.”
He said only one or two employees didn’t return when Busy Corner reopened, and those workers were already planning to leave around this time.
“It was impressive, how much employee retention we had through this,” he said.
He said other local businesses also helped them during the closure, offering their kitchens so Busy Corner could operate a pop-up shop and make pies for Thanksgiving and December fundraisers that had been booked before the fire.
Vollmer said he never feared that the business would not reopen, but the growing length of the closure became a concern.
“At first we thought, ‘well, this shouldn't be that bad. We should be able to get this cleaned up in a couple months.’ After we realized that the smoke had penetrated into the insulation, that caused everything to be backed up quite a bit because it took a lot more to [replace] it,” he said.
Vollmer said the support Busy Corner received from the community was very uplifting.
“We had tons of regulars come in and have coffee with us on the weekends,” he said. “I got non-stop calls and texts, and it was encouraging to see how many people – they were waiting, they were caring, and they were ready for us to open back up.
“The amount of people that have come in, talk about how nice the place looks and talk about how much they missed us, that's what we're here for. I mean, we're here for the customers and to have that encouragement and support, it's been really good.”
