Lincoln’s favorite Dog is Searching for a new master

[February 24, 2018] 

LINCOLN

Lincoln’s Blue Dog Inn on historic Sangamon Street is business as usual but is looking for a new owner as the Blackburn’s are looking to retire. The popular Blue Dog Inn restaurant presents a unique opportunity for the right buyer. The local favorite lunch and dinner spot is open and as busy as ever so don’t cancel your reservations.

The Blackburns purchased the restaurant in 2009. As long-time regular customers, they were concerned when owner Susie Furher said she was ready to sell but didn’t have a buyer lined up. Blackburns saw an opportunity and took it.

“We wanted to preserve it, upgrade it, and keep it as a legacy for Lincoln,” explains Barb. “Now we want to find the next person, the right person, to continue that legacy.”

Until that right person—one who appreciates the property’s unique place in Lincoln’s past, present and future—comes along, it will be business as usual at the Dog.

The Dog’s origin story

The former Illinois Tavern opened as the Blue Dog Inn in 1979, making the Lincoln landmark 273 in dog years. Legend has it that then-restaurant owners Lou and Bonnie Hardacre named it after Bob Verderber’s old hound that Hardacre called “Blue Dog.” Over the years, hundreds of dogs—in paintings, photographs, and other media—have come to call the Blue Dog Inn home and are displayed eclectically throughout the restaurant.

Over the past nearly four decades, the Dog has aged well, expanding from a stand-up bar with cold sandwiches to today’s full-service restaurant and bar serving its infamous Blue Dog-inspired menu. Everyone has a favorite Doggie Treats appetizer or Pick of the Litter sandwich, like The Pedigree or Best of Show. The Shoes, both horse and pony with eight meat options, are a central Illinois staple, and families love the Pups (kids) menu and weekly and monthly specials.

Since 2009, Blackburns have had the luxury of reinvesting most of the restaurant’s profits back into upgrades and improvements. In 2012, the restaurant expanded south into 113 Sangamon, which increased the seating from 70 to 110 and more than doubled the size of the kitchen. Other major updates included new coolers, air conditioning, and the restaurant’s first ever commercial dishwasher and the associated upgrade from wax paper in plastic diner baskets to real stoneware dishes.

From its early Illinois Tavern days, the Blue Dog Inn has been at the crossroads of Lincoln and central Illinois. Whether driving or arriving by train, meeting friends or doing business, the Blue Dog Inn has been a community staple for decades. Farmers, bankers, electricians, teachers, lawyers—many not unlike another lawyer who traveled and worked in the area in the mid-1800s.

Abraham Lincoln connections

Abraham Lincoln is known and admired worldwide as a great leader and politician, but few realize he developed those skills as a young professional in central Illinois. An attorney and former land surveyor, Lincoln worked for the Chicago-Alton Railroad as it planned to expand north from Springfield. He also worked for friends in the area, like railroad man Virgil Hickox, Logan County Sherriff Col. Robert B. Latham and Elkhart cattle baron John D. Gillett.

Lincoln, in conjunction with the activities of Latham and the others, played a significant role in the locating of the city of Lincoln along the Chicago-Alton railroad, the relocation of the Logan County seat from Mount Pulaski to Lincoln, and the establishment of the Lincoln Depot rail station and surrounding commercial district—including the sale and ultimate development of “Lot 14 in Block 14 in the part of the City of Lincoln, known as the Original Town of Lincoln, Logan County, Illinois”, i.e., the historic location of today’s Blue Dog Inn.

Today, Abraham Lincoln’s legendary August 1853 christening of the city of Lincoln with juice squeezed from a watermelon is commemorated by a monument, kitty-corner across the tracks, outside the Lincoln Depot. The historic Depot was renovated and reopened in late 2017 as part of the Illinois High Speed Rail project.

A unique opportunity

The Blue Dog Inn is staffed by 22 full- and part-time employees, several of whom have spent over two decades serving customers at the Dog. The Blue Dog Inn faces the Busby-Turner park, home to Lincoln’s iconic Route 66 Cow in the Corn sculpture, and is located within the city of Lincoln’s TIF district.

The Blue Dog Inn, 109, 111, 113, 113 1/2 S. Sangamon St., Lincoln, Illinois, features adjacent off-street parking, a full basement, rear carport, overhead second floor storage/work space, as well as a second floor two-bedroom apartment that is currently rented.

For more information about the Blue Dog Inn, contact ME Realty in Lincoln, at 217-735-5424.

[John Blackburn]

ME Realty is a regular advertiser in Lincoln Daily News.  Check out the LDN Classified Section under Real Estate to find new listings weekly from ME.