Local: One restaurant bites the dust, another re-opens
By Billy Dennis, Peoria Pundit administrator
Sad news, via Chef Kevin: The Penguin Tapis closing its doors, if if hasn’t by the time you read this. The Tap was always close to my heart. I used to eat there quite often, less and less since the original owner passed away, leaving the restaurant to his family. Unlike Kevin, I loved their style of thin-crust pizza. It reminded me of Pizza De-Lite, which closed up shop and moved to Sunnyland back when I was in grade school.
Honestly, I hadn’t been there is well more than a year. I moved out to Kingspark, and only recently back to Peoria, and my second shift job made it tough to eat lunch or dinner there. My parents still made the trek at least once a month with a group of friends.
Today, I noticed that the site of the former Leonardo’s Pizza on War Memorial Drive has reopened as a La Gondola. As I recall, Dick LaHood owns La Gondola. Dick is cousin to Michael LaHood, the last owner of Leonardo’s, which went into bankruptcy and closed without paying employees. The LaGondola on Gale Avenue closed some time ago (driven out of business by the road repairs that lasted far, far, too long).
I’m a fan of LaGondola’s sandwiches, so I might be paying a visit. But if Dick has any business acumen at all, he’ll make nice with former Leonardo’s employees and get the recipe for the original Leonardo’s Pizza.
Just driving around Peoria, I’m seeing more than a few new restaurants opening up. It’s a sign of Spring, as it were. There’s a new chicken-wing joint opening up in the building that used to be a drug store at the corner of McClure and Sheridan. I’ll post others as I come across them.
5 Responses to “Local: One restaurant bites the dust, another re-opens”
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From what I understand, they actually locked the place up and didn’t tell anyone they were closing. Employees showed up for work that day to find the place sealed. Talk about shady business owners.
They DID make a great pizza, though.
The Penguin was a traditional favorite of Journal Star daysiders (they somehow have time to drive somewhere to eat lunch). Not sure it still is, though.
I was not that impressed with their pizza, and could barely taste it for all the smoke in the place (this was a few years ago). No great loss, in my opinion. I do feel sorry for any that lost work, though.
It’s a shame about the Penguin. I know a few of the guys from Kemp Mfg. on Voss were there every day.
I had many a dayside lunch there with JS staffers back in 1982 or so. Good pub grub and a personable crew; I managed to gain ten pounds in ten weeks.
The pizza, like the Agatucci’s version, was strictly an acquired local taste: sauceless and Americanized–rather like a cheeseburger with peppers and onion on a thin crust.
But, like Donnelly’s or Aggie’s, a place that many erstwhile locals would want to visit when they came back for holiday visits. I knew something was amiss when I drove by there a few weeks ago at lunchtime & there were no cars in the parking lot.