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Sweet Peas returns in Chester

Posted March 26, 2016 11:00 pm

By Pete Spitler Staff Writer

After nearly an eight-year absence as a victim of The Great Recession, Sweet Peas has returned in Chester.

Bruce Sr.and Paula Luthy, who have owned the building since 1988, held a series of open houses on Friday and Saturday with a grand reopening expected for next Friday, April 1.

"We had Sweet Peas in 2008 and when the economy got really bad, traffic stopped driving with $4 gas," Bruce Luthy said. "We just didn't have enough business to stay going, so we became a landlord.

"And we were a landlord for seven and a half years."

An Asian restaurant, China 1, formerly occupied the building at 125 Stacey St. But a building that started with humble beginnings as a Dairy Queen in the early 1950s has come back to serve a variety of ice cream products once again.

"It's a family venture," Luthy said, who added that he was surprised that no one else opened an ice cream shop in Chester in Sweet Peas' absence. "My wife and I are the owners of it, but our family is heavily involved and I consider them part owners as well."

Luthy said Sweet Peas will be a seasonal store - April to early November - that will sell strictly hard and soft ice cream. Sweet Peas will be open weekends (Friday, Saturday, Sunday from 2 p.m. to 9 p.m.) in April before going seven days a week until late September.

"We've done a lot of research on four different brands across the United States and picked some of the better ideas from all of them," Luthy said.

"That will include some of our parfaits and our cakes and shake products."

Luthy also took the Herald Tribune back in time with a series of advertisements and photos from the location's history.

An advertisement in the Herald Tribune's July 17, 1953 edition - sandwiched between an ad for First National Bank (1 percent interest) and a Kroger ad with 27 cent soap, 29 cent margarine and 5 cent cracker jack boxes - invited 10,000 people to sample free Dairy Queen sundaes at the store's grand opening on July 19.

Mr. and Mrs. Leonard Good were listed as the original owners.

"We're the fourth owners," Luthy said. "The Goods owned it for many years and then, Dorothy Korando, and her husband, were the second owners.

"The third owners were John and Dottie Fleming and we bought it in late 1988."

Luthy said the building has had, he believes, four additions. The wood posts that are now in the center of the store were once the support posts of the overhead awning of the original building.

"The posts that are now on the inside are the original posts that were on the outside of the original building," he said. "The original building had a walk-up window on the east side and that walk-up window is still in that wall behind the drywall.

"I made sure they left it."

Luthy also said the floor, particularly on the east half of the building, is not level because the front of the store was tapered down to deflect rainwater.

"Behind the counter was a ridge where Mr. Good would clean his milk cans and then drain them on that ledge," Luthy said. "We've covered that up, but it's still in there and if anybody ever notices the floors aren't level, that's why."

The building is slightly younger than the Dairy Queen in Carbondale, which was built in 1951 by Jack Clover - according to The Southern Illinoisan. Like Sweet Peas, it has been family owned for more than 25 years.

"I think when you're a food business, it's cyclical," Luthy said, when asked what he learned from the first run of Sweet Peas. "It's affected by weather, competition, discount values, it's a very competitive business (with) no room for error.

"Usually, price sells and as a small independent, and even as a small Dairy Queen, you didn't have the purchasing power."

Luthy was asked his hopes for the business.

"We would like to be appreciated by the community as a local, hometown ice cream store that does a good job and becomes a valuable part of the community," Luthy said.

With a young staff, several of which are Chester High School students, CHS junior and Sweet Peas employee Jackie Hopkins was asked the hardest part of preparing for the grand reopening.

"Probably learning and remembering everything," she said. "It's just ice cream, there's no food, so then you have to add more into it.

"It's just a lot of remembering and figuring out how things work."

Hopkins was asked her favorite item on the menu.

"My favorite item would probably be the cookie dough concrete," she said. "I just love cookie dough."

But Sweet Peas has some company on Stacey Street as the barbeque-themed food truck Q & More has set up shop in the parking lot next door.

Co-owned by Gary Strothmann and Jane Kranz, it was in its third week at the location when the Herald Tribune visited on Friday.

"It's basically in the middle of town," Strothmann on what he likes about the location. "We get some business from some of the banks, Gilster-Mary Lee, (Chester) Mental Health, the prison comes up after dark."

Q & More is open from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Friday.

"I think it's a win-win for both of us," Strothmann said on being next door to Sweet Peas. "They can come here and get some good food and they can go in get some good ice cream."

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