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Coralville's Old Chicago reopens with new menu

By Gigi Wood

Cheers to Coralville.

That’s the message from Dale Paulsen, a part-owner of Old Chicago, a popular restaurant along the Coralville strip that was flooded in June. It reopened last week.

“We’re so excited to be reopened and see all of our old friends and regular customers,” he says. “It’s a great feeling.”

The flat screen TVs are back, the trivia consoles are buzzing and the World Beer Tour is on.

“We reopened faster than we opened the restaurant the first time,” Paulsen says.

The restaurant reopened with a new menu, a change it typically makes twice a year.

There is a new steak and cheese calzone, steak and shrimp sandwich, chicken rustica and four-cheese tortellini. The new menus were delivered before the flood, but employees never had time to open the boxes they came in before the water rose to 6 feet.

When Paulsen re-entered the building, the new menus were strewn across the floor. A couple of the booths were lifted by the flood waters, scraping the ceiling.

“We came in and there was mud on the ceiling,” he says.

The building was stripped down to the studs, the floors, walls, ceiling, electrical, mechanical and other systems were replaced.

“Everything is new,” he says.

Employees were able to remove 10 pieces of refrigeration and about 20 tables before the water flooded the building. They had spent the week sandbagging to no avail.

“We keep saying if it’s going to flood again we’re going to pack up and run like sissies,” Paulsen says. “I have no plans to lift another sandbag. It just doesn’t do any good; the water is going to come through anyway.”

The lack of guidance on how to handle the flood was disheartening to Paulsen.

“The one thing that disappoints me is the lack of good, solid advice from the authorities,” he says. “I would think there are people who have been through this situation and could have told us what to do, like not sandbag. Everybody lost everything around here and for what? It makes no sense to me.”

At the same time, he compliments local officials’ flexibility.

“They showed us true compassion working with us and letting us back in when we needed to,” he says.

Before the restaurant could reopen, the owners needed to buy all new tables, booths, chairs, kitchen equipment and art for the walls. One of the owners was able to locate a warehouse in Illinois that was storing equipment and furniture from an Old Chicago franchise that had closed two years earlier in Nebraska.

“If we weren’t able to negotiate that deal, we would have had a very hard time reopening,” Paulsen says.

The owners were able to buy the equipment and furniture at a good price, but they weren’t exactly sure what all came with the purchase. There were boxes of spatulas and other equipment all mixed together. They weren’t sure if the package deal included all the equipment needed to reopen.

“It’s like trying to unscramble eggs trying to figure out what you have and don’t have,” he says. “It’s a very uncomfortable feeling not knowing if you have the right tools to serve your customers.”

While the restaurant was closed, many of its more than 70 employees worked on the reconstruction.

“They were out here swinging,” he says. “I’m very proud to know we pulled it off.”

Others worked temporarily at local restaurants. Since it reopened, 90 percent of its pre-flood employees have returned. The restaurant only needed to hire 15 new employees.

“We try to make sure they are treated well,” Paulsen says. “I think they worked at these other places and I think they realized they weren’t going to be treated the way we treat them.”

Owners and managers continue to tie up loose ends involved with reopening the business. Paulsen says he gets about four hours of sleep at night and expects that to continue.

“I’ll do it until the work is done,” he says. “You’ve just got to keep moving.”

This article originally appeared in the Corridor Business Journal.