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j willy's Kitchen Nightmare
Restaurant owner runs out of options, hopes not to sell, close.

By HEIDI PRESCOTT
Tribune Staff Writer

SOUTH BEND - A struggling restaurant usually applies to the Gordon Ramsay show for help when it is just about ready to close. Such was the case for j willy's Barbeque House.

So it should not come as a surprise, owner John Ittenbach said, that he and his business partners wanted to test the market for prospective buyers while they waited for their "Kitchen Nightmares" segment to air.

They listed the restaurant at 52885 Indiana 933, near the corner of Cleveland Road, north of South Bend, for sale last spring in a confidential offering with local real estate company Grubb & Ellis/Cressy & Everett. The asking price was $1.3 million for the building, equipment, furnishings, and liquor license - a little high on purpose, since it has always been their intention to persevere.

"At this point we've run out of resources to keep putting back into the business," he said, despite the change of focus from pizza and sandwiches to ribs after Ramsay's February visit. "We've seen this coming for a long time. We couldn't see through the trees and didn't know if we could make it until the airing."

The restaurant, formerly Damon's, has endured while Steak and Ale, Panorama, Pizza Hut and Burger King closed their doors along the highway stretch as consumer spending has slumped.

"I don't know about you, but I don't know anybody with money right now," Ittenbach said candidly, "and I think we're going to see a lot more closings. You're crazy to be in this business, but after 34 years in restaurants, it's the only thing I know."

The sale listing garnered no interest from prospective buyers. And that's OK, Ittenbach said.

Now that j willy's has survived the summer months and is nearing a hearing date to appeal its property tax increase, the restaurant only has 15 days until everything could turn around with the kind of attention you only get from a reality show.

"We're still groggy from all the punches," he said, "but we're still standing and we're excited. What Gordon can do - I mean, his power reaches around the globe."

From everything they've heard from other restaurants that have been featured on Ramsay's show, j willy's should experience quite an uptick in business from the publicity. Not to mention from the special barbecue sauce Ramsay has created.

The sauce, which Ittenbach describes as "thicker than a marinade but not your typical thick heavy sticky sauce," is being bottled as we speak outside of Chicago and will be available for sale when the show airs.

Ittenbach expects it to be posted on the j willy's Web site at www.jwilly's.com on or before 9 p.m. Oct. 30.

"We're optimistic if what has happened at the other stores with increased traffic happens here," he said, "we think we can make it."