Founder of iconic Route 66 eatery in central Illinois dies

LINCOLN, Ill. — Ernie Edwards, a beloved fixture of Route 66 history and founder of the highway’s iconic Pig Hip restaurant in central Illinois, has died at the age of 94.

Edwards died Wednesday, said neighbor and close friend Geoff Ladd, who is also director of the Illinois Route 66 Scenic Byway.

In his tall white chef’s hat, Edwards regaled Route 66 tourists from as far away as Europe and Africa with tall tales and entertained them with jokes at his restaurant in the village of Broadwell, along the eastern gateway to the legendary road across the U.S.

He was best known for the pork sandwich that gave the eatery its peculiar name. The ham was said to come from the tender left hip of the pig. It had a secret sauce — some described it as “peppery” — and came on a toasted, buttered bun with lettuce and tomato.

The Pig Hip restaurant served hungry travelers from 1937 to 1991. After that, Edwards kept it open as a museum until the building was consumed by a fire in 2007. Edwards reopened the museum in his home next door with his wife, Frances, who survives him.

In 1990, he was among the first to be inducted into the Route 66 Association of Illinois Hall of Fame.

Trying to pin down the attraction of the place back in 2003, then-chairman of the association’s preservation committee John Weiss put it this way:

“It’s mom, pop and apple pie — not Applebee’s. It’s pig hip and pecan pie,” Weiss said, according to The (Bloomington) Pantagraph.

Edwards was renowned for his banter with customers and his showmanship, credited with helping make the tiny village a stopping point on the Route 66 pilgrimage.

“He was a purveyor not only of food, but in the style of P.T. Barnum, also the high jester of roadside humor and tall tales,” Lincoln resident Nancy Saul told The (Springfield) State Journal-Register. Saul, a local lifestyles editor, interviewed him several times over the years.

She recalled Edwards telling customers the pig’s left hip was “always the most tender because pigs scratch themselves with their right hind legs.”

The restaurant’s original site is identified with a stone marker. Efforts are under way to bring back the Pig Hip sign to turn the site into a memorial to Edwards. Other Pig Hip artifacts will be put on display at a planned museum at another landmark restaurant known as The Mill in nearby Lincoln.