Landmark Restaurant Gutted Wednesday

A LEGENDARY RESTAURANT IN GLENVIEW, ILLINOIS, WAS DESTROYED Wednesday when a 2-alarm fire swept through famous Matty’s Wayside Inn on Waukegan Rd. just north of Chicago.

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Larry Shapiro

No injuries were reported, but the 5-hour fire left the restaurant a total loss. WBBM-TV Ch. 2 relates:

Matty’s Wayside Inn was an old-fashioned, North Woods-style supper club that served Polish cuisine and American favorites. The restaurant advertises that it “combines old world European Inn charm with a genuine Wild West saloon atmosphere, all in a comfortable garden-like setting.”

According to the book Images of America: Glenview by Beverly Roberts Dawson, the building that houses Matty’s was constructed in 1890 as a farmhouse, and opened as a restaurant at the end of Prohibition in 1931.

Matty’s started out as a “blind pig,” or a restaurant that served liquor illegally during Prohibition, the book said.

A passerby reported smoke coming from the building around 3:43 am. The first unit arrived on the scene five minutes later and reported heavy fire in the center of the building. Overall, 100 FF’s attended the fire with 10 engines and 5 trucks from 7 departments.

Investigators have been on the scene all day going through the debris.

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