On Tuesday, Tully Garrett and Holly Barker officially bought the long-closed Launching Pad Drive-In in Wilmington, Illinois, and its iconic Gemini Giant fiberglass statue.
On Friday, the couple will be introduced as the Route 66 restaurant’s new owners during a news conference at 9:30 a.m. at the Route 66 Miles of Possibility event in Joliet, Illinois.
It’s an opportunity for attendees to learn more about Route 66’s newest entrepreneurs. But a news release from the Illinois Route 66 Scenic Byway proves informative in its own right:
New owners Tully Garrett and Holly Barker describe themselves as “second-chance soulmates.” They both lost their spouses to cancer in the last several years. “We were both living the American dream and we both had our lives crash in on us due to the loss of our spouses,” said Barker.
According to Barker, Garrett owns an insurance agency that has been in his family for 55 years. Tully was also in the music industry, and his extensive music memorabilia collection will be on display at the Launching Pad in a mini-museum. Tully has a real affinity to classic cars and car shows and he plans on hosting car shows at the Launching Pad and wants to partner with local business owners to help bring in the community to make this a huge success.
Barker started working in restaurants the day she turned 16 and continued to work through high school to afford a trip to England and thus her love for travel adventure was born. She is “so excited to embrace the travel and tourism industry here in Illinois.” Holly describes herself as a world traveler having lived in three different countries and travelled extensively.
Barker has worked at a broad spectrum of restaurants, including a BBQ restaurant in North Carolina where she is from, all the way to fine dining establishments. She earned a minor in Food Service Management with a BS degree in Health Promotion from Appalachian State University in Boone, NC. Her first job out of college was working for PYA Monarch Food Service Distribution which later became US Food Service. She left the food service industry in 1998 to join the pharmaceutical industry where she worked for Abbott Laboratories with its home base close to Chicago.
Holly retired from the industry in 2015 after her husband passed away from cancer in 2014 and moved home to establish Grief Anonymous and the Grief Resource Network for grieving people in crisis. Grief Anonymous, is an online grief support organization with 70K+ membership with 60 online volunteer administrators and a Facebook page that has a million views a month and is growing rapidly.
According to Barker, Holly and Tully met in one such online group for widowers and widows. They became instant online friends for months, and later when they met in person, “the two fell instantly in love.” Holly says the purchasing of the Gemini Giant/Launching Pad “offers them a genuine opportunity for personal happiness. Tully gets his car shows and music and to eat great food. … Holly gets her back room for community events and the opportunity to meet people within her network…the opportunity through her kitchen to create what the town of Wilmington longs for as well as a new business model for restaurants where everyone shares in the success.”
With the Grief Resource Network, Holly plans on bringing her skills to the Launching Pad and helping with the homeless crisis in Chicago, utilizing the food trucks and a percentage of the restaurants profits to aid in her cause to feed the hungry. The organization will house itself in the back of the Launching Pad. The front of the building will provide “the full experience of historical nostalgia and the great food and experience everyone is hoping for,” said Barker. “The restoration of the Launching Pad to its original glory and intent is paramount, with the added new benefits of our community projects. We will be starting renovations on the exterior of the building and then moving in phases on the inside of the building during the winter months. We hope to be ready by late spring of 2018.”
Bill Kelly, executive director of the byway, proclaimed the Gemini Giant one of the five biggest Route 66 attractions in Illinois.
The Miles of Possibility Conference begins Thursday and concludes Sunday. It will include tours, speaker presentations, panel discussions, workshops and live entertainment. The full schedule may be found here.
(Image of Tully Garrett and Holly Barker at the Launching Pad Drive-In courtesy of the Illinois Route 66 Scenic Byway)
They’ve got the legs of GG cleaned up already. Things are looking up. I can’t wait to grab a burger there.
Route 66 enthusiasts need to remember that it costs money to operate attractions like this. Don’t just stop and snap a picture. Buy a t-shirt, a bumper sticker, a burger, or something.
Here’s hoping they will bring that great N.C. ‘cue (either eastern or western, I don’t care) to the Mother Road.
Drove by it Sunday and it is so good to know the place will soon be open again.
RoadDog
Stopped by last May and had a coffee and chat about the restoration, bought a sticker as you must when visiting any attractions, lovely people who I hope will do well.