Georgie Boy’s, a locally owned, family-style restaurant has taken residence along the southeast corner of Lincoln Avenue and is scheduled to open later this year.

Owner Steve Simmonds said his restaurant will cater to customers from Eastern’s campus and the rest of the community, but the menu is still being tweaked.

The restaurant will serve “comfort-style foods,” for breakfast, lunch and dinner with the choice to either sit in and eat or customers can carryout their orders.

The name of the restaurant originated from the owners first name, ‘George.’

Mayor John Inyart said the key to keeping a successful business running is to differentiate from the competitors and offer services and menu items that are not available anywhere else.

Inyart said this restaurant has these qualities.

“Especially with breakfast being offered and being in a walking distance from campus, I’m assuming students love that, and to be able to sit down, that’s why it will stand out,” said Inyart. “I know they have spent considerable money remodeling the building and on the new equipment. More choices help keep people in town spending their money- which translates to additional revenue in the way of sales taxes collected by the city.”

Unique Homes of Charleston is renovating the old two-story brick Ko-op building, adjacent to Eastern’s Old Main building on campus.

The building is located on the same space that was once home to Coed Hair Styling and a University Baptist Church that was located in the basement of the building.

Both businesses have since relocated.

Executive Director for the Charleston Area Chamber of Commerce, Cindy Titus said anytime you talk about the success of a restaurant, it has to do with “location, location, location.”

“They have an excellent opportunity to succeed with staff and students who need a close place nearby to eat at, doing well should be in their favor,” said Titus. “People are always looking for something new too.”

Nathan Rasmussen, a senior geology major, is eager for someplace new to try, especially after four years of eating at his usual go-to places.

“Charleston doesn’t really have many restaurants to choose from where people can sit and hangout, and eating at the same place gets old, I would know,” said Rasmussen. “I’m excited to try something new, I’ll be first in line.”

Bob Kincade, the owner of What’s Cookin, a similar style restaurant located in Charleston at 409 Seventh St., said he will continue to put good food and business in order to keep business at his establishment.

“We always offer new and fresh choices on our menu to give customers more reasons to keep coming back,” said Kincade.

Kincade said the variety of restaurants to choose from is great for Charleston residents and in the long run, the city will benefit from having more businesses.

“We will go about running our business the best way that we can, competition is part of life,” said Kincade.

Joey’s Place, a restaurant offering sandwiches, hamburgers and hot dogs neighbors Georgie’s Boy by less than 100 feet.

“It’s America, they can do anything they want to do,” said a Joey’s Place employee.

They made no other comment regarding the opening of Georgie’s Boy.

Charleston has also seen many restaurants come and go in the past two years.

BOXA served pizza for nearly nine years before closing their business in October of 2009.

Dog ‘n Suds, a drive-in diner closed their doors after nearly four decades of service to the Charleston community in December of 2009.

“The last two years have been tough times for the city but we can’t make general assumptions as to why certain businesses close,” said Titus.

Titus would not comment on the exact reasons for why the two businesses closed.

Both establishments were however transformed into new businesses, which Inyart said is a way for something good come from something bad.

Inyart said it is a way to not only save a considerable amount of money, but being able to use an existing building in the long run could help the business keep down the initial costs of development.

“It can make the facility more profitable and can translate into a more competitive price structure for the goods or services, or in this case the food. Many businesses do this,” said Inyart.

Recently, The Pentalty Box is now where the bar, Mad Hatter’s use to be, O’Brien Auto Parts is located at the site where Dog ‘n Suds was once located and Planet Wiener took over the space of the former BOXA restaurant just two months ago.

For some of the recently opened restaurants in Charleston, business could not be better.

For Planet Wiener, which opened in October, the only cause for any decrease in business is the weather said Manager, Justin Centers.

“We’re still doing great since our opening, the cold weather slowed some of our business down but definitely not enough to hurt us,” said Centers. “We’re still going strong.”

Allison Twaits can be reached at 581-2812 or altwaits@eiu.edu.