The Joliet Area Historical Museum on Sunday will open the circa-1920s Planinsek Grocery and Meat Market in Joliet, Illinois, as a house museum.
The market at 1314 Elizabeth St. (map here) will have free admission that day.
After that, the Planinsek Grocery will be open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday and Saturday until it closes for the winter in mid-December. It will reopen in the spring, reported the Joliet Patch.
Admission after the free opening will be $5, with children age 3 and younger free, with a small gift shop of Slovenian memorabilia.
The grand opening coincides with the second annual Slovenian Grape Harvest Festival across the street at the Rivals Park Picnic Ground from 1 to 9 p.m. Sunday.
More from the Patch:
The Planinsek’s grocery store operated from 1926 until 1961. Emma Planinsek lived in the back of the property until 1990. Her husband, Martin, died in 1955.
“It was a corner grocery store. This is where everyone would come to get meats, dish soap and groceries,” remarked Kailee Lowry of the Joliet historical museum staff. […]
“It’s about immigration, it’s about the neighborhood grocery store as an anchor,” Peerbolte explained. “This was an entity that serviced people that walked to work. I think that story of Joliet’s neighborhoods, it was an institution, and it’s one of those things you don’t think to preserve, but it’s immensely important.” […]
The opening of the grocery store museum, coupled with Joliet Prison tours and the downtown museum, gives Route 66 visitors another key reason to spend an entire day exploring Joliet, Peerbolte said.
“And we have programming in the works in partnership with the Slovenian community,” the museum director explained. “So the community can expect this to be here a very long time.”
The Patch article also contains several photos of the market’s interior.
The market sits just two blocks west of Illinois 53 (aka Route 66) on Joliet’s north side.
According to earlier reports, the market had been vacant for about 20 years before the museum acquired it in 2020.
(Image of the Planinsek Grocery and Meat Market in Joliet, Illinois, via the Joliet Area Historical Museum website)