COURTESY OF THE ORIGINAL CRUSOE'S
The Original Crusoe's has been a fixture in Dutchtown for 44 years.
Stevie Limmer LaChance has never known a world without the Original Crusoe's (3152 Osceola Street), the old-school south St. Louis bar and grill her father first opened in 1979. Her parents met there, and — like many kids of restaurant owners — she and her brother then grew up there.
About 10 years ago, as her father, Steve Limmer, dealt with Parkinson's, LaChance took over the business, and she and her husband Elliot have kept it going through the COVID-19 pandemic and what have been some very tough years in the restaurant business.
But yesterday, LaChance felt like she'd had enough. She wrote on Facebook that she would be closing the place.
"Unfortunately, we are going to have to close our restaurant of 44 years," she wrote, noting that she'd grown up in the place. "We were hoping for the same for our children, but times have changed and it is a lot harder than it was before."
The post went viral. LaChance found herself with more than 1,000 likes, 684 shares and 366 comments, many from people who loved the place, who remembered working for her parents or who developed fond memories of family celebrations there or just eating Crusoe's signature fried chicken.
And some weren't willing to let the beloved Dutchtown favorite go. A friend put up a GoFundMe, and people kicked in more than $1,000. Others reached out directly.
It was, to put it mildly, a roller coaster of a day.
"It's a little emotional," LaChance admits. "I knew I cared about this place, but to see other people cared too..."
COURTESY OF STEVIE LIMMER LACHANCE
Stevie Limmer's dad, Steve Limmer, opened the Original Crusoe's and met Stevie's mom there.
"We had to keep turning people away," LaChance says. "It was 100 degrees and the thing that sucks hot air out of the kitchen wasn't working. I couldn't put my staff through that." After losing all those days open, and business that never really bounced back after COVID, she thought she saw the writing on the wall. She hated owing money to people like her electrician.
"I was getting to the point where I couldn't pay people, and I knew these were small businesses like me," she says. "We were getting into a hole. I didn't know how to get out of it without selling."
But now she finds herself hoping that she won't have to. She says she's not asking people to donate money (though she's grateful for the GoFundMe). She just wants the place to be bustling again.
"I just want people to come and eat," she says. "I want people to come out and support my business. I want to have a reason for my husband and I to work all these hours with two little kids."
Yesterday's outpouring of support has her contemplating a different ending. "It makes me want to fight for it," she says.
And so Crusoe's will be open tonight, and will be open this weekend, and they'll be serving that fried chicken to the families who come to the restaurant for a homestyle dinner and good company. The regulars will be there — but she's hoping to see faces she hasn't seen in a long time, too.
She's hoping for a different ending.
"I want people to know that I'm willing to put the effort into it," LaChance says. "I want to be there. But I need their business."
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The Original Crusoe's Announces Closure — But Hopes to Avoid it - Riverfront Times
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