With black-and-white checked tablecloths and a jukebox playing music from the 1940s and ’50s, the Libertyville Senior Center’s dining room isn’t your typical place to get a cheap lunch.
The dining room coordinator zips around in a poodle skirt and in-line skates. The “Libertyville Diner,” as it’s known, attracts about 45 seniors who eat there three days a week.
It’s quite a change from July, when the town’s seniors were left without a regular reduced-lunch location after Catholic Charities, citing budget problems, closed the Senior Center it had run for six years.
Only about 15 seniors were showing up for the daily lunches then.
When the village of Libertyville decided to reopen the Senior Center, 135 W. Church St., it wanted to know why so few people were eating the lunches.
The answers weren’t surprising: The food wasn’t very good, and the eating area lacked pizazz.
Denise Roberts, the Senior Center coordinator, decided the solution was local caterers–and a theme that seniors could relate to.
Roberts is sure seniors will keep coming back, because “they know the low turnout was a problem, and it’s also more fun with more people.”
