Riverview reopens; new owner planning outdoor deck

Riverview is back!  After closing at the end of November after COVID-19 restrictions hurt business just too much, the 51-year-old restaurant has been sold and reopened Monday of this week, with the new owner planning big improvements very soon.
Steve “Moe” Burk signed an agreement Friday to buy the restaurant from Junior Stutzman and his wife Leanna, who’d bought the restaurant just last September after moving to the area from Cisne, Ill., but COVID restrictions forced them to close.

Burk also owns Main Cross Café in downtown Hawesville, which is also currently closed to due state restrictions on restaurants, but he knew someone needed to do something to save the venerable restaurant with a scenic view overlooking the Ohio River, as well as to save the jobs that were being lost.
“Of course I didn’t like it because the girls, they all got laid off here at Christmas, so that was kind of a bummer,” Burk said. “The biggest thing was to get it back open, that was my main concern.”
“Plus we didn’t have no place to eat,” he said. “Because we were shut down and then when they shut down up here that pretty well left us high and dry, you know.”

Burk reopened the restaurant Monday of this week, with all of the previous employees and longtime employee and manager Anita Arison keeping her role as manager.
“So basically everything’s the same,” he said.

One thing that’s changed is the restaurant is back open seven days a week, including on Sundays. Other changes will be to the building and the atmosphere.
“We’ve got plans for the future, hopefully,” Burk said. “I’m wanting to try to build a deck here beside it and I’m wanting to add bathrooms upstairs.”
Burk, whose main job is at Commonwealth Rolled Products, where he’s worked for 26 years, said he’s not buying the restaurant to get rich, but to just preserve the history and provide some place for people in the county to go.

“I’m not worried about trying to make a fortune,” he said. “I just want everybody to have a place to work, these girls to have a job, and me have a place to come hang out and talk to my buddies and everybody come and socialize.

“It’s something that’s been in Hancock County forever, so it needs to stay here,” he said.
The restaurant will be open from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday through Tuesday, and 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday.  By Dave Taylor
dave.hancockclarion
@gmail.com