07/02/2009 (5:44 pm)
In Granite City, pies and potatoes tell the story of steel town’s struggle
GRANITE CITY — In this gritty steel town, the coconut cream pie and twice-baked potatoes at Jerry’s Cafeteria serve as unlikely gauges of the national economy.
During the boom times, back when the steel mill hummed with the metal sheets to make all the new cars and fridges consumers were snatching up with easy credit, the pies and potatoes really moved. Same for the fried chicken and Jell-O salad and breaded pork chop, too.
"Going gangbusters," recalls cafeteria owner Jerry Roderick.
The same term is used by steel workers to describe what was happening a couple of blocks down at Granite City Works, the massive steel mill with soaring cobalt-blue walls so large that they appear to envelop the town.
More than 2,000 people worked there. An additional 4,000 held jobs related to the mill. They all needed to eat. And they did not have to go far. You can see the plant’s smokestacks from Jerry’s parking lot.
And then … You know what happened. People stopped buying much of anything. Manufacturers stopped needing steel. In December, the steel mill was idled. Almost everyone was laid off.
"And it all rolled downhill," Roderick says.
It rolled downhill and across city streets, a wave of economic bad news hitting everything in sight, down 20th Street and over to Edison Avenue, where Jerry’s sits in a low-slung block building with newspaper racks and a daily specials sign out front.
"It was like someone closed the door," says Roderick, 67, whose parents opened a restaurant in Granite City in 1945. He started the cafeteria in 1986.
Sitting in his office behind the kitchen, past a wall plastered with his grandchildren’s photos, a rack of pies cooling outside his door, Roderick wonders how long he can hold on. Six months? A year? Things need to turn around. It’s the mindset everywhere, from the steel mill’s corporate offices across the street to the union hall — across the nation, too. How long can this go on?
One sign of hope: Union officials said recently that they expect nearly half of the steel mill’s workers to be rehired soon. But a full recovery could take several months, possibly years.
Roderick has never seen it like this.
He is missing not just the steel workers.
He misses the salesmen no longer stopping by for a bite between calls to the steel plant.
And the outside warehouse workers.
And the truck drivers picking up meals-to-go before hauling away another batch of steel.
"They’re gone," Roderick says, wistfully.
Roderick still does a decent Sunday business. Lots of churchgoers. Catering for weddings "has been pretty good fast payday loans. Don’t know if in another six months that’s going to be true." He’s found a market catering to pharmaceutical sales reps visiting doctors’ offices. He still sees the familiar faces from the local engineering firm, the law firm girls, workers from City Hall and the Prairie Farms dairy.
"The lunch business is kind of there," Roderick says. "It’s puny. But it’s there."
Walking into Jerry’s Cafeteria, it smells like melted butter and green beans. The food line is at the back, past the dining room’s green carpet, red chairs and tables. White trays on the right. The salads — fruit, lettuce, Jell-O — are first. Then the fried chicken and the vegetables. Then the pies. Fifteen different varieties. Banana cream. Chocolate cream. Custard. Pecan. Cherry. $1.95 a slice.
Cafeterias like Jerry’s seem to belong to another era. Roderick reads the newspaper obits and says, "I think I’m losing another customer." Young people have been slow to take up the slack. But he has hung around.
So have his workers. Some have been with him more than 20 years. Roderick has tried to avoid layoffs, instead cutting hours here and there.
"You feel you have an obligation to keep them employed best you can," he says.
But the tough times had to be passed on in some way. So last month he posted a sign in the window: "Due to the economic downturn, we will no longer be making donations until further notice."
No ad this year in a Catholic church’s family digest. No money for the Shrine Club. Or various golf tournaments. People asked for money to send a local hockey team to Russia, and sponsor their daughter in a contest, and fund a local softball team. No, no, no.
"It seemed like everyone was coming to us at one time," says manager Sheila York, who has worked at Jerry’s for 24 years.
"That’s all out the window," Roderick says.
Roderick still feeds people who show up at his cafeteria hungry but too poor to pay. He was out there with free coffee and doughnuts during a steelworkers rally earlier this year.
And the steelworkers have not forgotten Jerry’s Cafeteria.
Vicky Guth was laid off from Granite City Works in December. Money is tight. But when she goes out to eat, she makes a point of stopping at Jerry’s for the twice-baked potatoes.
"It’s just one meal," Guth said. "But it’s going to give them some hope."