Lucille Dust of Munster and her daughter Lynn Beilfuss, visiting from Georgia, spent their Friday lunch date saying goodbye to their menu favorites at the Commander Restaurant, a dining destination landmark at 745 Ridge Road in Munster for 45 years.
“Their breakfasts are always wonderful, and of course, their Greek lemon rice soup is legendary,” Dust said.
“We are sitting in the same two-seater booth where I still can remember the original husband and wife owners used to sit in later years. I’d recognize them because I used to take Lynn’s son, my grandson Joshua, who’s 20 now, to eat here when he was just a kid, and he always wanted us to sit at the old-fashioned lunch counter.”
On Oct. 8, brothers Danny and Bobby Sirounis announced via a Facebook post “the end of an era” with the sale of the family-owned business launched by their parents. Gus and Maria Sirounis purchased the existing eating establishment and rebranded it with a nautical theme as the Commander Restaurant.
For the previous decade beginning in 1970, the same restaurant was under the now-defunct Bensonville, Illinois-based franchise known as Yankee Doodle Dandy Hamburgers, which promised patrons “flame kissed 59 cent grilled burgers.”
“My brother Bobby and I have been part of this operation since we were first starting out helping our parents,” Danny said Thursday, helping direct hungry lunchtime customers lined up throughout the lobby waiting to be seated.
“It’s time for a change, and the time is right.”
The final business day for the Commander Restaurant will be Oct. 26, before the operation transitions to the new ownership of Honey Jam Café, an Illinois-based franchise with nine other locations, including Countryside, Boilingbrook, Downers Grove and Naperville. While the Commander Restaurant was originally open until midnight for dining for decades, in recent years the business hours have been 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Honey Jam Café has a shorter business day from 6:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Danny and his wife Lori, who also assists with the restaurant operations, have listed the Commander Restaurant for potential sale for the past several years. A 2019 listing with LoopNet real estate was attached to a $1.8 million asking price.
“I also work in real estate,” Danny reminded.
“So I had the business posted with a purposely higher price for some years now just to see if there was any interest. Our own son and daughter are grown, and they have their own careers now. At one point, we did (get) our original asking price, or close to it, but it was a car wash business that was interested in our real estate address. We said no and wanted to wait, ideally for another restaurant operation, even if that meant accepting a lower price. Honey Jam Café is a good fit, and a good number of our staff would like to stay on and work for the new restaurant.”
Patricia Seward, 66, of Hobart, has worked at the Commander Restaurant since she was 16 and is among its 50 employees. She plans to interview to stay on with the new establishment.
“I’ve worked in about every possible position here, other than the kitchen cooking,” Seward said.
“I’ve been the hostess, counter help, waitress, salad prep and many other aspects of the daily duties.”
Seward said when she was first starting out, some of the assigned daily tasks seemed intimidating for someone young and just learning.
“I was especially wary of the first time I had to serve an order of saganaki, the fried Greek cheese that is served lit with flame, and then the flame is put out by quickly squeezing a lemon over the fire,” Seward explained.
“You have to be fast, but you also don’t want to squirt the lemon in someone’s eye or have a lemon seed flying across the table.”
Danny Sirounis said he isn’t planning to retire and will instead continue his 17-year second full-time career working in real estate for Meeker Real Estate Agency. Brother Bobby Sirounis plans to spend more time traveling.
Neither brother has a preference about keeping any souvenirs or mementos to remind them of their lifetime in the restaurant business.
“We’ve had a lot of people ask us if we plan to take the old framed oil portrait of the sea captain that hangs behind the cash register, and the answer is ‘no’ because we both have plenty of items to remind us of the family business,” Danny said.
“That painting has been hanging in the same place since Mom and Dad were still around, and it looks pretty good right there.”
Father Gus Sirounis died in January 2022 at the age of 87, and wife Mary followed last year at the same age on Sept. 29, 2024.
Philip Potempa is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
