July 7, 1897, 11:45 a.m. On the corner of Brookfield and Prairie avenues, the wood-framed Grossdale Pavilion, also housing the village’s municipal hall, was engulfed in flames, which soon spread to the brick-walled building just east. This structure, the Winkrans Building, suffered damage from the fire, but was not totally destroyed and was repaired. It still exists today in the form of the Loca Mocha Cafe at 8836 Brookfield Ave.
On the ground floor of the Winkrans Building was one store shared by two businesses, side by side. On the west half was Paul Paschke’s Meat Market, taken over from “Suaton, the Butcher.” On the east half was John P. Puscheck’s Grocery. Puscheck was a relative newcomer to Grossdale, even though he advertised himself as being “The Old Reliable Grocer” in the Grossdale Vigilant newspaper on June 19, 1897. Also located on the grocery side was the village’s small post office, where people could pick up their mail.
As a result of the fire, Paschke’s Meat Market was destroyed. It was bad enough trying to keep the meat safe from the influence of the recent spell of hot weather. A Chicago Tribune article about the fire, dated July 8, 1897, reported an early estimate of a $500 loss to the meat market. In reality, the loss may have been larger.
Paschke’s grocery-selling neighbor, Puscheck, reportedly suffered a $3,000 loss. Both businesses had no insurance, although the building they operated out of was insured for $2,500. Probably all estimates were later revised. What is known is that Paschke’s name vanished from local records soon after.
At the time of the fire, Fred Mandel of LaGrange was in the process of erecting a two-story building on the east side of Grand Boulevard. The building was 46 feet wide, had a limestone-block front and brick side walls. The roof was in place, but the work on the upper floor was not yet complete, in regard to interior work. The ground floor section, comprising two separate entrances to two separate stores, was finished enough so that Puscheck could immediately lease the entire building and begin to replace and reassemble his grocery stock and fixtures.
Within a month’s time, he was in business again, and he was also operating a meat market in the southern store section. The northern store was the grocery section, and both had exterior screen doors.
As soon as the second floor was finished, the Puscheck family moved in: John, his wife Emma, and his sons Arthur and Alvin. Members of the Puscheck family were still living here well into the 1980s.
At the streetside roof line of the building, exact center, a curved-top cornice read: “F. Mandel 1897.” The cornice was made of solid wood, with an attached tin front that bore the name of the building owner and construction year. In 1987, during roof work, the cornice was removed. Since the day it was built to that time the building’s exterior had not been painted regularly, except on window frames. Sometimes the two bay windows bases got a coat of white, but otherwise that was it. Now black and white paint was used to highlight the fancier elements of the building, and people passing by said it looked positively elegant. It still does.
House numbering didn’t begin in Brookfield until 1914, but John Puscheck tried to start it up all by himself in 1907-08, when he advertised in the Suburban Magnet newspaper that his store was located at 29 and 30 Grand Boulevard. This failed to induce others into “going numerical.” In 1914, the meat market became 127 and the grocery became 129. In 1930, when the Chicago style of numbering was adopted, the meat market became 3731, and the grocery became 3729.
By 1907, Puscheck was also promoting black-and-white Brookfield scene postcards. The way he did it was to stick them up inside on the window on the meat market side. Also on this side, but out front on the sidewalk, he set up a bulletin board signbox, for use by the public. Below the space for bulletins he advertised “Franco Wilson Cigars-10 cent Cigar [for] 5 cents.” Puscheck was no stranger to other forms of advertising, either, as his many ads in the Suburban Magnet newspaper prove.
Parking in front of the store was no problem, since there weren’t many cars in the village. And if customers arrived by horse-powered vehicles, they could tie up their horses at one of the four hitching posts set just off the street.
If they had a mind to, they could also tie their horses to one of the two elm trees growing in front of the store. Village founder Samuel E. Gross had planted the elms up and down Grand Boulevard in 1889 (these two survived Dutch Elm disease until the early 1980s, when they were finally removed)
If customers had access to a telephone, they could always call their orders in, and receive their meat and groceries at home on that or the next day, since horses and delivery vans were kept for that purpose in the brick barn out back.
As the year 1910 approached, the Puscheck Grocery and Meat Market finally advertised itself in the biggest way. Many business buildings in the village didn’t bother to erect signs saying what they were, simply because all the local people already knew. Now Puscheck’s emblazoned its name across two canvas awnings, above the ground floor windows.
From 1897, John J. Weaver acted as postmaster in the grocery half, with John Puscheck himself becoming postmaster from 1903-12, when he died. That year, the family closed the two stores for the day, and nailed black crepe bows on the doors at the entrances to the grocery, meat market and the upper floor apartments.
A few years later, the family sold the business to R. Stubbe of Hollywood. Stubbe held on to the business into the 1920s, selling out the meat market half of the business to Anton Rajsky, who opened his stores as the Boulevard Market, while Stubbe operated the Boulevard Grocery. The four Puschecks living overhead had an easy walk to buy food. They just went down the center stairs and turned right or left.
In March 1932, the Thomas M. Prazak Fruit Market opened at 3729 Grand Blvd. Though he also sold some staple foods, he specialized in selling fruits and vegetables. By 1934, the meat market was no longer owned by Rajsky, but became a branch of the Cicero Meat Packing Company, lasting as such into the late 1940s.
During 1943-44, the Cicero Meat Packing Company left 3731 Grand Blvd., and John Tlapa took over the business of butchering, lasting until 1977, when Stan Janoski’s Meat Market took over, and replaced Tlapa’s sign hanging over the sidewalk with one that said Village Meats.
Stan’s existed until 1987, and then J and J Finer Meats opened up, staying there for four years until April 1991, when it closed. Since that time there has been no meat market on this site. But there was one for 96 years, and that’s quite a run.
After that, at 3731 Grand Blvd., Tees and Trophies opened up, selling shirts and, well, trophies. After that, the store was vacant for a few years, and the a men’s workout facility opened its door and then closed it within the space of a year. For the last six months, there has been a florist here-Christopher Mark Fine Flowers and Gifts.
As for Prazak’s business, Rudolph Cerny took it over from 1940-41 and returned it to being a grocery store. But it was to be a grocery business no more after 1941. For the next three decades, the store at 3729 Grand Blvd. was alternately vacant, or housing a variety of small shops. It was in 1970 that the Suburban Sew ‘N’ Sweep shop opened here, offering sewing machine and vacuum cleaner sales and repairs.
The Sew ‘N’ Sweep shop swept out of there by 1984, and the Merry Go Round Stained Glass Center opened there by 1985. But it didn’t last very long. After it came another short-lived business, an antique and crafts shop, named Checkerboard Home Furnishings.
By 1987, C.R.A. Office Services was at 3729 Grand Blvd. and was gone by the early 1990s. Then, briefly, it was the newer half of Tees and Trophies-before it closed, completely. Amici’s Pizza Plus opened here, then closed, and was never seen in Brookfield again. Paisan’s Pizza opened here afterwards until it moved across the street to 3720 Grand Blvd., where it still is today.
The 3729 Grand Blvd. store front was empty for two years, when, in the year 2000, the Weber Travel Agency moved in, transplanted from its former location in Berwyn. Its slogan is “see The World before You Leave It.” In business in Berwyn from 1956-2000, Jerry, the owner, has declared that “being on Grand Boulevard is great. It’s a great location.” Well, why not? The Cicero Meat Packing Company once thought this was a good building to do business in, too, back in the Depression years, no less.
This building, erected in 1897, has seen many customers go through its doors over the last 109 years. Though owners, prices and products have changed, its doors are still open for business. Back in Brookfield’s Grossdale years, people built things to last.