Tuesday, July 30, 2013

"Dino's Closing After 60 Years in Racine"

From Mount Pleasant Patch:

"After nearly 60 years of serving Racine, Dino's Restaurant will close its doors at the close of business on Sunday.

"Dino Dominici opened the restaurant at the corner of 16th Street and Phillips Avenue in 1955. Now 82, he said it feels terrible to see his life's work closing.


"'I've been here for 58 years, paying the bills and now the bank doesn't want to work with us,' he said. 'We're doing good business and we have good customers.'

"Dominici said the trouble began over two years ago when he had to have open heart surgery and couldn't keep up with the payments. When he was on the mend, the family tried to get the bank - Tri-City National Bank - to work with them, but the family couldn't meet the cash requirement.

"Dave Ferderer, Dominici's grandson, told Patch Monday that the business is going through foreclosure despite an agreement that the bank would own the building and the restaurant would lease. Then, he said, he got a call from the family's lawyer saying the deal was a bust and foreclosure proceedings would commence.

"'We started going through this two years ago, trying to get them to work with us, but they just wouldn't,' he said. 'For some reason, they'd rather see an empty building than give a local business another chance.'"


Read more: http://mountpleasant.patch.com/groups/business-news/p/dinos-closing-after-60-years-in-racine


I've dined there only a couple of times.  The food was good.  It's disappointing to see another locally owned business go belly up.

Edit: Racine Uncovered has a "Letter from Dino’s Restaurant to the community" posted: http://racineuncovered.org/2013/07/letter-from-dinos-restaurant-to-the-community/

9 comments:

lizardmom said...

so sad to see another family business fold. We've only been there once but it was really good, so very very sad :(

SER said...

I guess I really don’t understand it; nearly 60 years in business and they still owe the bank?

Was there some management decisions made that just didn’t pan out such as borrowing some money to purchase new pizza ovens, or beer coolers, then business (sales) slowed?

He doesn’t seem to be the type of fellow who would go out and gamble the money away.

In any event it is a tragedy for Racine. We have a mayor who talks how he wants to bring businesses into the city, yet can’t seem to find a way to help these folks out and another loss of jobs is going to happen. Yet he (Lying John) can give Porters $1.2 million dollars of the tax payer’s money!

Hopefully their "Frozen Pizza" business will continue to flourish.

OKIE said...

SER - I thought the same thing, 60 years in business and still owes money.
That being said, there is no reason that the bank couldn't help but as we have all seen, they don't care how many empty houses and buildings there are. Their profits are going through the roof.
And God forbid, the city do anything to help.
Downtown is already a ghost town; I guess the Mayor doesn't care if the whole city becomes one. Sad.

kkdither said...

My thoughts led exactly to what SER said. After 60 years you still have huge loans?

I know they their business did a lot for the people of Racine. Many fundraisers were held there, much goodwill for the city. I know they had difficulties with the crime around their establishment and were proactive in installing cameras.

I dined there several times in my life. I haven't been there in many years, mostly because of the neighborhood. Unfortunately, SER, this is not one of the areas of town that the city is interested in anymore.

I wish their family the best. Very tough to see another business closing up shop.

Toad said...

It started with the heart surgery, and considering he Is self employed, I'm certain, It cost Many, Many thousands of dollars of his own money to have the surgery. The restaurant business Is one of the most difficult to make survive. He lasted 60 years, and Is a stinking 150K short. That's peanuts for a restaurant business that old. The Bank could help him, but I'm sure they want special conditions (as stated in the article) for them to comply. Wait and see, perhaps someone will step forward to help. Maybe Johnson Wax will help, they seem to bail the city out all the time, so people can BASH them. BTW. I'm being nice here friends.

OrbsCorbs said...

I wondered why there was a mortgage, too.

The neighborhood is tough. If you go to Dino's carryout door, you'll see that their employees are behind bulletproof glass.

I see their meal delivery trucks all over the south side. I called once to have something delivered, but they have a minimum, like $25, and I didn't want that much food.

OrbsCorbs said...

The Journal Times disabled commenting on their story about Dino's due to repeated violations of their Terms of Service.

MinnesotaChick said...

That's really too bad they had to close. One of the old time names in Racine.

Unknown said...

so sad