Restaurant razed after closing early this year

SPRINGFIELD — A local restaurant that has served residents for decades was being razed Tuesday, after a lack of business forced it to close.

The building at 1205 W. North St., which most recently housed Joe’s U.S. 40 Grill, shut its doors last year. On Tuesday, much of the building was reduced to piles of cinder blocks and scraps of wood spread across a section of the 40,000-square-foot lot.

Dorothy Young, who owns the property with her husband Carl, said while they hated to see the building torn down, the costs to maintain it were too high.

“We’re just tired of having a building there that’s not being used,” Dorothy Young said.

For decades, the restaurant had been known as Stockdale’s, and the Youngs purchased it in the late 1970s. They owned and operated the restaurant under the Stockdale’s name for more than a decade before closing in 1994.

“It was a beautiful, nice neighborhood restaurant,” Dorothy Young said of Stockdale’s.

Young said the couple is now planning to sell the 40,000-square-foot lot.

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