Lou Malnati's employee serves up tradition

Holiday traditions have a way of sneaking up on you. You do something or go somewhere a couple of years in a row and suddenly doing that or going there is a "tradition" and you just don't feel right about skipping it.

Such is the case with the Christmas decorations at Lou Malnati's Pizzeria, 1050 E. Higgins Road, Elk Grove.

Server Vicki Lucki has been spending her own time and money to lavishly decorate the restaurant since it opened in 1971 and while doing the decorating has become a holiday tradition for Lucki, going to the restaurant to enjoy those decorations, along with the pizza, has become a holiday tradition for countless others.

"There is a man who comes through here every year and one year he admitted to me that he is constantly on the road for business and has no real home so he stops here each Christmas season because he considers coming here his Christmas," Lucki recalled. "It brought tears to my eyes."

"We also have a couple who comes here every year from Tennessee to enjoy the pizza and the decorations, and another couple that comes from Florida," Lucki said.

They once lived in Elk Grove and have fond memories of the restaurant and its Christmas decorations, so they make a pilgrimage back every year.

And many others come from considerably closer.

"There is a woman who lives in Sycamore now and she has told me that she decorates 17 trees in her home each year and has been inspired to do all that by what I do here at Lou Malnati's," Lucki related proudly.

"A lot of people call ahead to see if the restaurant is decorated yet," added Alloy Garcia, the location's manager for the past 11 years. "I really do believe that it adds a bit to our traffic."

And because of customer demand, they also keep the decorations in place for the first three weeks of January so that everyone who wants to enjoy them is able.

The decorating tradition began when the restaurant's original manager, Bernice "Peachy" Lis, asked Lucki and another server, Joanne Smith, to help her put up a few decorations to make the new restaurant festive. They ended up with a sleigh holding Santa, along with all of his reindeer, strung across the entire ceiling of the restaurant.

"And every year Peachy became more brazen with her decorating and we helped her, making most of the things at home on our own time," Lucki recalled.

One year Lucki had her brothers construct wall-mounted, lighted Christmas trees using 2-by-4 frames, garland and lights. One of those trees still graces a wall each year.

Another year she made a 7-foot snowman costume out of popcorn and she would sometimes get inside the costume when the restaurant was busy and make the mammoth snowman dance.

Every year there is a different theme for the Christmas decor. This year the theme is toy shop, but in the past it has ranged from gingerbread men, to The Nutcracker, skiing penguins, Peace on Earth and much more.

And many of the decorations, scenes and large characters Lucki has made herself out of cardboard, fabric, stuffing and even chicken wire make encore appearances in subsequent years, thanks to the large storage area Malnati's has in the basement.

For the past 10 years, Lucki, 75, has been carrying on the decorating tradition on her own, with only the help of her daughter, son, son-in-law and a grandson. Peachy passed away and Joanne has retired.

"I couldn't do it without Vicki, Doug, Donald and Bryce," Lucki admitted. "We were all here until 5:30 a.m. on the day after Thanksgiving and we were working on things in our home for a month before that."

The centerpiece of this year's decorations is a huge toyshop storefront with two display windows filled with toys and a front door with a little girl and her dog about to open the door. Lucki sketched out her concept and her son-in-law constructed it for her out of cardboard.

It is perfect right now down to the icicles on roofline and the wreath on the front door.

"I try to make things as authentic as possible," Lucki admitted. "I am pretty fussy. It has to be right."

The toyshop theme is augmented by jaunty Christmas music, lots of Christmas lights and wreaths, Santa hats on all of the animal heads mounted on the walls, lots of toys and Christmas characters sitting on ledges throughout the restaurant and a 5-foot Santa greeting people at the front door.

"I do it for the customers," the widowed mother of two and grandmother of four explained. "I love bringing the warmth and happiness of Christmas here. It gives me so much joy to watch their faces."

"Every year I say that it is my last year of decorating but then the customers beg me to do it again and suddenly while I am serving pizzas or sleeping, an idea comes to me and I find myself sketching it out and giving it to my son-in-law to make," she laughed.

"This is all from my heart. I never get paid to do it and I come in on my own time," Lucki admitted. "But I don't care. It is worth it to me because I know how much it means to the customers."