End of an era: Owner of Dixon’s now-closed Mama Cimino’s credits success to Cimino family, loyal employees

DIXON – Mama Cimino’s, a staple in Dixon for more than two decades, officially closed its doors Monday. Just one day later, renovations got underway for the new restaurant and bar, Lena’s Social Club, that’s expected to open there in November.

Jim Gallentine owned and operated Mama Cimino’s at 104 Peoria Ave. for 23 years. He said he decided to sell the business to Heather and Greg Huffman because, at 73 years old, “it’s just time.”

Gallentine said Wednesday that he looks forward to spending time with his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

“I haven’t been able to because, in this business, it’s a seven-day-a-week job,” Gallentine said.

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Previous owners Larissa McClain (left), Jim Gallentine and Melissa Gallentine have sold Mama Cimino’s to Heather and Greg Huffman. (Alex T. Paschal)

“It’s just a little bit harder than it used to be, and I’m finding out just as we’re moving out now that I can’t do the things that I could when I was 40 years old,” he said.

Over the years, Gallentine would put in up to 12 hours of work sometimes, cover shifts for employees if they called off and always was able to lend a hand when it got busy.

“I worked like that my whole life, so it never bothered me, but I just can’t do what I did,” he said.

In what Gallentine’s wife, Melissa Gallentine, calls his famous words: “My mind writes checks my body can’t pay,” he said.

But back in 2001, Gallentine wrote a check that his body could pay.

He’d been working at the steel mill in Sterling for 35 years when it closed, leading him to begin searching for a new job. That’s when he met Nick Cimino, and the pair decided to buy the building across from Dixon High School at 116 N. Peoria Ave., where Raynor Door Authority of Sauk Valley now stands. Together, they opened Mama Cimino’s in November 2001.

“When I started, I couldn’t even spell pizza, let alone make one,” Gallentine said. “The traditions, the recipes and the integrity that I learned in this business I learned from Mama Cimino and her sons.”

It all comes from a more than 50-year Cimino family tradition.

The woman behind Mama Cimino’s built an empire, Gallentine said. After her husband died, she and her four sons took over operations at the family’s first location in Freeport. Today, there are about 20 Cimino restaurants across northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin. There’s also one in Las Vegas and Boulder City, Nevada, as well as one in California. All of the restaurants are independently owned.

Gallentine and Cimino were the first ones to ever call one of the restaurants Mama Cimino’s. Before then, all of the restaurants were called Cimino’s Pizza or some variation of that.

“There was a lot of responsibility in putting Mama’s face on the sign,” Gallentine said. “She’d remind you every day that, ‘That’s my face you’re representing.’”

About 2004, Gallentine and Cimino opened another Mama Cimino’s in Clinton, Iowa. About a year later, Gallentine and Cimino separated their business partnership; Cimino retained ownership of the Clinton location, and Gallentine remained at the Dixon location. Then, in 2008, Gallentine moved the restaurant to its downtown location.

Over the next 16 years, Mama Cimino’s grew to become a Dixon community favorite, offering catering, weekly buffets and space to host private events. Since 2013, when Jim and Melissa Gallentine married, “she’s been here by my side, helping me run this place every day since,” he said. “It grew to the size where it took both of us.”

“I owe it all to my help,” Jim Gallentine said. “There’s absolutely no way we could’ve gone from where we started to today without good, loyal employees.”

One of those employees is a pizza maker “who’s been with me 22 years, and we’ve only been in business about 23 years,” he said.

In Dixon, Mama Cimino’s became more than just a restaurant. For Gallentine, he “learned the value and the importance of being involved in the community,” he said.

The restaurant was involved with Discover Dixon and participated in the Scarecrow Festival, the Christmas walk, the Petunia Festival, the city market and many more community events. One of the big events Mama Cimino’s participated in every year was the Reagan Run 5K. Each year, the restaurant donated about 70 pizzas for the runners to have after they’d finished the race.

“We are so fortunate in Dixon that the leaders are so proactive,” he said. One leader that Gallentine singled out was Dixon City Council member Mary Oros.

“During the [COVID-19] pandemic, she was the one person that visited the business almost weekly,” Gallentine said. “She helped us with grants and helped us to stay informed so that we could do whatever we could do to stay in business.”

He also said how impressed he is by all the development Dixon’s leaders have accomplished along the riverfront and in the downtown area. That’s been beneficial for Mama Cimino’s because of all the community activities the restaurant was a part of.

“They happen right here,” Gallentine said.

Mama Cimino’s also made donations to many community organizations. Primarily, “the youth and the local food pantry,” Gallentine said. Most notably, Mama Cimino’s had a booster club at the high school and held an annual canned food drive at the restaurant.

Supporting the youths is something Gallentine feels strongly about “because they’re our future. They’re everything,” he said.

Almost all of his grandchildren and four of his seven children worked at Mama Cimino’s when they were growing up.

“The youth of today are good workers,” he said.

Many of his employees were students at Dixon High School. In September, the last month before Mama Cimino’s closed for good, 10 of those students “were either on outstanding or honor roll, they played sports and they worked. They were polite. They had manners,” he said.

Another life lesson Gallentine said he learned while owning the restaurant is to “buy local, support local.” He’d first heard that saying from Rick Curia, president of Ken Nelson Auto Plaza. Using that philosophy, he’d choose to shop at Kitzman’s Lumber or Ace Hardware rather than a larger chain store, even if someone were to tell him he could get something cheaper there.

The idea was – and is – that small businesses should support one another, “and I think we saw it come around,” he said.

Like Mama Cimino’s, the Huffmans’ hope is that Lena’s becomes more than just a place to eat, but a community space focused on service, Heather said.

The new restaurant and bar will offer a south-of-the-border menu as well as pizza, pastas and desserts. The Huffmans plan on completing extensive renovations to “restore as much historical integrity as we can,” Heather said in an interview with Shaw Local.

It’s expected to open Nov. 2.

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