Organizations Help Lumes Bring Back Customers After Shooting

CHICAGO (MORGAN PARK) — Things were finally getting back to some semblance of normal at Lumes Pancake House in Morgan Park. After several months of closure due to the pandemic, the full kitchen crew and waitstaff were back and servers were waiting on customers inside the pancake house as well as a large dining tent that had been set up in the parking lot.

When owner Jimmy Klapsis felt like he was getting his restaurant back on its feet, the unthinkable happened. A 31-year-old man was shot to death by three men while eating outside in the outside dining tent on a sunny summer afternoon. The slain man was not from the neighborhood.

“I was called right away,” Klapsis said, who was not at the restaurant when the shooting occurred on Aug. 30. “I came right over and was here until 11:45 in the evening.”

Since the shooting, Klapsis says business has dropped off 75-percent. Klapsis thinks people are afraid to come back.

“We’ve been here 25 years and something like this never happened before in this area,” Klapsis said. “The shooting happened outside the restaurant. This restaurant is safe.”

Klapsis and his manager of 12 years, Beverly Hubick, are on a first-name basis with many of their customers — consisting of cops, firefighters, nurses, doctors and people from the neighborhood.

“Some customers sent cards [after the shooting], and some stopped by to give gifts to employees,” Klapsis said. “Some schools did some catering just to help us out. A lot of customers want to come back, but they’re still afraid.”

One of the first things Klapsis did after the shooting was to take down the outdoor dining tent. Hubick sent letters to all the area churches, a big source of their clientele, encouraging the after= church crowd that filled Lumes’ two dining rooms pre-pandemic to come back.

“Lumes is a safe, family-owned restaurant. I’ve been there with my own family since [the shooting],” Ald. Matt O’Shea (19th) said. “We need to support this business and what it has done for this neighborhood.”

When O’Shea started a GoFundMe campaign to feed first responders and medical workers at the height of the pandemic during the spring, O’Shea said Lumes was one of the first neighborhoods to provide meals.

Now 19th Ward business organizations, including the 19th Ward Youth Foundation, Morgan Park-Beverly Hills Business Association and the Beverly Area Planning Association are banding together to help draw neighborhood residents back to the restaurant that through no fault of its own, has become associated with tragedy.

From 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 14, Lumes, 11601 S. Western Ave., Chicago, will be hosting "Pumpkins and Pancakes." Dine-in customers can enjoy a delicious breakfast or lunch and receive a free pumpkin. Lumes is also open for carryout and catering.

“Lumes has been supporting front line medical workers and first responders, now we need our community to support them,” O’Shea said.