Rick Tafton said he remembers walking into Wilbur’s grocery store in Mokena with his mom when he was about 5 years old. Years later, he often pedaled his bike to the pharmacy next door to get baseball cards and ice cream with his friends, he said.
A little over a year ago, Tafton returned home after opening restaurants across the area and started plans to open his own restaurant, The Dock on Front Street, in the building that once housed Wilbur’s.
The Dock opened in early August, and Tafton said the community response has exceeded expectations. The restaurant has served at least 7,500 people so far, he said.
Tafton said there’s at least an hour wait for tables on the weekends and a full house on weekdays that makes it feel like a Saturday.
Working in the building that housed his childhood grocery store reminds him of his mother, who died about a decade ago, he said. Tafton said it’s a “home run” that he can relate to the community.
“I know the area,” said Tafton. “I still have a lot of contacts in the area. To me, it was just a natural fit.”
Tafton has also opened restaurants in New Lenox, Minooka and Joliet, a few under the name Dock, and he still uses the same chef and manager from the Joliet restaurant.
He said he gave the new restaurant an identity that allows more menu flexibility, and it serves items such as chopped salads, smash burgers, filet sliders, homemade pizzas and chicken parmesan.
This menu variety requires collaboration and ideas from across his restaurant team, including the bartenders, who create custom cocktails.
“I mean, the one thing I learned in this industry and life is that you can’t do it all yourself, so you’ve got to trust the people around you to kind of all come together, come to agreement on what they think is going to work, and that’s how you succeed,” Tafton said.
He said the biggest hit has been the drink menu, which includes these cocktails, along with wines and margaritas.
In the next month, Tafton said he plans to start using a smoker for prime rib and steaks on weekends, along with additional pasta dishes.
Tafton opened The Dock’s event space Aug. 19, which can host wedding showers, rehearsal dinners, memorial luncheons and business meetings. He said they booked nine events in the first four days.
Tafton’s wife, Julie Tafton, said she would like to use the event room for community events, such as limoncello classes, wine pairings, fundraising events, breakfasts with Santa, a witches night out and a space for Mokena’s Irish fest.
Julie Tafton said she emphasized community gathering in designing the restaurant, saying she wanted it to feel like a lake house, which she said is her and her husband’s happy place.
She had never designed a restaurant, and neither had her childhood best friend Bridget Podracky, who helped her with the project, so they designed the place more like a home than a restaurant. Using Podracky’s real estate experience, they added batten texture walls and dozens of woven lamps hanging from the ceiling.
They also incorporated some history, such as the original wood from the previous location for the bar counter and pictures of the previous businesses in the entry way.
“A place where you just kind of want to sit and stay, where everything’s light, clean bright and fresh,” Julie Tafton said. “Where you want to sit with the open doors with friends and you just want to like, tell people, ‘come meet us here. we’re here.’”
So far, Tafton thinks the layout is working, and people are gathering with friends and staying.
Wayne and Sheryl Paben, who have lived in Mokena for 65 years, said they’re excited to see some “buzz” on Front Street again, and attribute it to The Dock. Sheryl said it’s been a long time since she’s seen the downtown parking lot full.
“When we come down the street, and there’s no places to park, it’s a good day,” she said..
She said she still pictures Wilbur’s grocery store when she walks in The Dock building.
Wayne said Wilbur’s and Front Street was a community hub when he was growing up, but that community buzz shifted away when businesses started moving to South Mokena, along Route 45 and on 191st Street, he said.
Before that shift, he said, residents would race to get to Wilbur’s at 8 a.m. “for the best glazed doughnut in the world” and would pay their grocery tab usually once a month, before credit cards were used widely.
The grocer even allowed the high school football team use the phone for free after practices for a ride home. The pharmacy, and post office part of the downtown street.
A pizza place occupied Wilbur’s after it closed, then a few other restaurants before the building was abandoned for almost a decade, Wayne said.
“(Front Street) kind of died, and for us, hurts because this was Mokena,” he said. “You used to buy anything on Front Street.”
The Pabens said it’s only been about a month since The Dock opened, but they hope the community continues to gather on Front Street.
awright@chicagotribune.com