Thursday, May 31, 2018

L&K and Leavitt Road Revisited - Part 3

The 1980s brought more national chains to Leavitt Road in Amherst near the intersection of Cooper Foster Park Road.

As you can see from the 1980 Lorain City Directory listing below, Dunkin Donuts and Mr Hero had joined the restaurant lineup on the east side of the highway.

The original L&K Restaurant next to the Marathon station – the granddaddy of all of the chain restaurants along that stretch of Leavitt Road – would last appear in the 1982 directory, its address going vacant in the next edition.
And by the time of the 1983 city directory, Sambo’s would also be gone – replaced at its location by Friendly’s.
The mid-80s brought even more chain restaurants. A Sisters Fried Chicken outlet opened in the L&K Restaurant’s old location at 940 Leavitt. Here’s its listing in the 1986 city directory.
The 1986 city directory was also the last to include a listing for the L&K Towne House Restaurant. By the time of the 1987 edition, it would become Ike’s Great American Restaurant.
As noted in a past post, Bob Evans Restaurants opened its Amherst store in late 1987.
But what about the L&K Motel? It would continue to appear in the directories until around the 1991 edition, when Travelodge was listed at that location, bringing an end to L&K’s presence in Amherst.
1991 city directory listings
****
Many more changes occurred along that portion of Leavitt Road since the 1990s.

Today, the Big Boy is long-gone; an empty lot sits near Route 2 where once the jolly statue of Big Boy stood. Sisters Chicken & Biscuit is gone; a Taco Bell sits at its old location. A Chipotle Mexican Grill occupies Friendly’s spot. Days Inn now runs the motel that started out as a Lawson’s Motor Inn, and there’s a Denny’s at the L&K Towne House’s old address
The BP gas station – the successor to Jack’s Sohio – is closed as well, leaving Sunoco as one of the oldest businesses on Leavitt in that area.

2 comments:

  1. Neat! Thanks for that little bit of L&K trivia! Ike's was a name that was more familiar to me, seeing the signs in Wadsworth & Wooster. Turns out, there's still an Ike's in Lima, though the road sign says "Ike's Mid American Restaurant." Not a bad place either.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Ryan! Glad to hear that the surviving Ike's in Lima is doing well. I like that they were able to have some continuity with their name by tweaking it just a little.

    ReplyDelete