Quick wit, smart political talk and snappy one-liners were the expected side dishes at Jim’s Butterhill Grill and Breakfast Club, where James Koclanis held court in Hillside, hobnobbing daily with the west suburb’s movers and shakers, family and friends said.
Mr. Koclanis, known to friends and patrons alike as “Jimmy the Greek,” kept the diner going for 50 years with his famous pancakes, political passion and humor.
“He used to say, `It’s where the elite meet to eat,'” said his daughter, Kathy. “The thing about his little restaurant was that it was a real meeting place.”
Mr. Koclanis, 92, a longtime diner owner, died of congestive heart failure Tuesday, July 18, in the Greek American Rehabilitation and Nursing Centre in Wheeling.
Opened in the mid-1950s, the restaurant that seats no more than 50 people originally stayed open for three meals, his daughter said.
Almost immediately, Mr. Koclanis struck a chord with the community and its power base, hosting daily meetings of the police chief, mayor and others in the know in Hillside, longtime friend Mike Bruno said.
“I used to stop there every morning without fail,” said Bruno, a funeral home owner. “When I would be coming in, he would tell the rest of the crowd to look alive.”
Mr. Koclanis’ stature in Hillside was recognized in 1996 when he had a village street co-named for him.
Born on Chicago’s North Side, Mr. Koclanis later moved to Bridgeport, where he worked in his father’s candy shop before joining the Army in 1943, said his niece, Elaine Maniatis.
After his discharge in 1946, he was a taxi driver, employing his vast knowledge of the streets, his daughter said.
He moved to California in the early 1950s after getting married, but soon returned to the area and moved to Hillside, where he eventually opened Butterhill, his daughter said. He and his wife divorced in 1962, and Mr. Koclanis never remarried.
Along with the restaurant, Mr. Koclanis focused on his love of politics and preaching his staunch Republican values, his daughter said. An admirer of Abraham Lincoln, Mr. Koclanis listened to Rush Limbaugh daily and could always be found chatting about the day’s events at his restaurant’s counter.
“He was the wittiest man you ever wanted to know,” his niece said. “Everybody wanted to be with him because he was so funny and intelligent.”
When he was not chatting about politics or reading, Mr. Koclanis loved to go to Arlington Park to place a wager on the horses, his family said.
In 2005, Mr. Koclanis was forced to close his diner because of illness.
Besides his daughter and niece, there were no other survivors.
Services have been held.
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trybarczyk@tribune.com
