'Really bittersweet': Smokehouse restaurant to close after 35 years in Wheaton

Devotion to Smokehouse runs deep in Wheaton.

Dinner lines have stretched out the door with regulars resigning themselves to one last beef gyro and one last slab of ribs from the family-owned restaurant at Main Street and Cole Avenue.

"It's been absolutely crazy here. Lines out the door," owner Connie Poulopoulos said before lunch Wednesday. "People last night were standing in line for over an hour just to get to the register. I had such an outpouring."

Poulopoulos knew Smokehouse customers were loyal, but even she's been overwhelmed by the response to her plans to close the north Wheaton fixture by the end of the week.

"I had no idea it was going be like this," she said.

But it shouldn't come as a surprise that the closing has stirred such nostalgia for a restaurant that's always been an old-school destination. The menu was reliably familiar in the 35 years since Poulopoulos's husband, Bill, and their business partner, Ted Kastrantas, opened Smokehouse on Labor Day weekend in 1983.

Even before you would arrive at Smokehouse, you knew what you're going to order. Maybe a polish sausage. Definitely some fried mushrooms. And who could refuse the overflowing Italian beef sandwich with peppers?

"They all want to get their last fix of a gyro," said Poulopoulos, who displayed the meat dripping with all of its succulent juices on two vertical rotisseries near the front counter.

She manned the register while patrons were waiting in line well past the lunch hour Wednesday. Ross Click had to have a "fresh gyro" and fries. Will he find a substitute? "Not like here," he said.

The tradition is coming to an end as the Smokehouse owners prepare for retirement.

"It's really, really bittersweet, and I'm really emotional about it because I was a workaholic," Poulopoulos, 67, said. "I was here day and night for just about the whole 35 years."

She announced Tuesday she had sold the restaurant property to the Wheaton Eye Clinic in a Facebook post with more than 500 shares. The clinic across the street plans to convert the building into offices at the corner lot, Poulopoulos said.

"They just need the parking for their employees," she said.

Her husband shared her work ethic running Smokehouse.

"He never left the business," said Poulopoulos, who lives in Bloomingdale. "He wanted to be here all the time. The family as a whole sacrificed a lot."

He died Oct. 1, 2000, and Poulopoulos took over his share of the restaurant.

"I think my husband is looking down from heaven, and I hope he's smiling and saying, 'Good job, 35 years,'" she said.

She considers her employees - two of whom have worked at Smokehouse for about 20 years - and her patrons as family. Some of those folks have brought cookies at Christmas.

"We're going to love every minute of it," restaurant partner Ken Jimenez said of the last day.

Smokehouse will stop serving meals Friday night, and then Poulopoulos plans to sell memorabilia.

"The community is wonderful. I've met such lovely, lovely people. I thank them with all my heart," she said.