The former Route 66 Cafe and adjacent Belvidere Motel along old 825 Old Route 66 South in Litchfield, Ill., have been put up for sale for $150,000.
The restaurant’s operators left the property a few years ago, telling me at the time that the landlord hadn’t fixed the roof. But, according to the listing for the property on Century 21, a new roof has been installed. The listing says:
Be a part of Historic Route 66 History!!! Great investment opportunity on Historic Rt 66 in Litchfield. Formerly operated as the Belvidere Hotel and Route 66 Cafe. Units are leased monthly. Sold As Is. Great location with lots of potential. Has new roof.
Century 21 also put a slide show of the property on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/dzLIThZSaFA
According to Quinta Scott in her book “Along Route 66”:
Lester and Edith Kranich owned the Belvedere, built in the years following the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair. The cafe was of the same ochre-tweed brick as the Ariston and in a style that was somewhere between Streamline Moderne and Spanish Colonial. By contrast, the motel was a plain white clapboard building housing a series of attached units, unusual in an era when motel owners generally built individual cabins.