When University Professor W.R.B Willcox designed 1340 Alder St. in the 1920s, it was intended to be an apartment building. Over the years, it has been home to a variety of different businesses, and today University students and Eugene residents know it as the Campus Glenwood.
Rick and Karren Lareau founded the Glenwood restaurant in 1976 in Glenwood and named it after the town. On Friday, Oct. 13, 1978, Jacqui Monninger bought the Glenwood from the Lareaus, and in 1981, she moved it to Eugene, where it opened on Willamette Street. Then, Monninger said, a friend told her a restaurant on Alder Street had gone out of business and the building would be good for another location. In April 1983, Monninger opened the Glenwood Campus Cafe.
The building has a long history. Monninger said it was a bookstore when she was in college. Night Manager Michael Gann said it had also housed a jewelry store and once sold hot dogs from the side service door. But it was originally an apartment complex.
“Customers who are 60 (years old) tell me they used to live in this building,” Monninger said. She thinks part of the Glenwood’s magic is that these people can visit their former home, have a nice meal and remember the times when they lived there.
Gann believes the Glenwood has a good reputation because Monninger knows how to treat the customers.
“She has a policy: The customers get whatever they want,” Gann said. “Substitutions in the menu can be made to cater to the customer’s needs. Tofu can be added or egg yolks taken out. She also believes in service with a smile. She makes up the menu herself, so it is all very original, and that adds its own uniqueness.”
Monninger said she’s been in the restaurant business since she was 17 years old, and through that experience she “learned somewhere along the way how not to treat people,” which is why it is so important to her that her customers get what they want.
“We want the restaurant to be something special and (memorable), while at the same time affordable,” Monninger said. “We don’t have any parking space around here, so we have to make up for it with great food, wonderful service and affordable prices.”
She also believes it is easier for the Glenwood to accomplish those goals because it’s an independent restaurant.
“Independent restaurants often do better than chains,” Monninger said. “As an independent restaurant you can go with what the community wants, such as getting tofu on the menu, where at our other location it is not as popular. You can also respond better to demand than chains when you are independent.”
Gann has worked for Monninger for the past nine years and said the Glenwood “is the best place in town to work.”
“Jacqui believes in treating her employees as one treats customers. She hires people who all get along,” he said.
It’s important for employees to enjoy what they are doing because that feeling is then passed on to the customers, Gann said. Gann and Monninger both agree that “having a wonderful staff who all get along is another reason the Glenwood is such a wonderful place.”
“This place is also great because of the location and the type of people who come in to eat. We always have great customers,” Monninger said. “Every type of people comes in: old, young, students, business people, skateboarders. They make up our atmosphere where everyone feels welcome.”
Student patrons like not only the Glenwood’s menu, but also its proximity to the University.
“They have reasonable prices, homemade-style food and quality service,” University sophomore Andryce Anderson said. “I have my parents take me there when they come visit because it is close to campus and the food is great.”
Gann said the tomato cheese soup is the most popular item on the menu and a Glenwood trademark that everyone loves. “Breakfast is also served every day, all day, which is very popular with the customers,” he said. “We also have one of the best patios in town.”
“You can get a great grilled cheese sandwich and a bowl of tomato cheese soup for under $4. It is a nice place with good food near campus,” senior Peter Vomocil said. “For the first couple of years I was here, I took my parents there until we exhausted the menu. Now I get to share it with my grandparents when they come to town to visit me.”
Allyson Taylor is a freelance reporter
for the Oregon Daily Emerald.