The town I grew up in was a pretty stereotypical small town. It’s tripled in size since I was a kid, but back then everyone knew everyone, and you ran into them at the only grocery store/pharmacy/post office in town. There was one big hangout, Lamppost Pizza. Last Friday night I discovered, via Facebook, that Lamppost was closing. I was shocked – where are all the high school kids supposed to hang out now? THE MALL?!?! How cliché.
I remember when the pizza place opened back in 1986. I could not WAIT to go to the new pizza place with VIDEO GAMES. Then we discovered it had a train that went around the entire inside of the restaurant, which upped the kid-cool factor by a thousand points.
the now-parked train
I spent countless Saturdays here, playing video games in my softball uniform and tracking muddy cleats all over the floor. So many team parties were at Lamppost. When I got older my friends and I would get pizza after Friday night football games, and stay to watch the football highlights on local television.
Mike, Annie, my parents and I met up with my friends Tara and Mia and most of their respective kids at Lamppost this last weekend for lunch. As Tara’s kids asked for quarters, I remembered begging my parents and Tara’s parents for quarters while they sat at the same tables.
(Annie, by the way, didn’t care that her video game didn’t work. She just wanted to sit at the “Annie car” and turn the steering wheel.)
My mom asked why the place was closing, and was told that they just couldn’t compete anymore. It seemed hard to believe because the place was jam-packed on Sunday, but with the town’s growth there are lots of other places to go hang out and eat pizza.
Sitting at those tables brought back so many memories…birthday parties, off-campus lunch in high school, dinners with favorite teachers, gossiping in the bathroom about boys, bonding with my friends during college breaks. Lamppost always served as this standing reminder of how great and innocent my childhood was, and even though I don’t live in my hometown anymore, it was great to know I could always go back there when I wanted to. And now I can’t, and it’s sad.
I’m glad I was able to take Annie and have that last lunch with my friends. One day I hope Annie will have a favorite local place that will hold decades of memories.
Mia, me, Tara. Not pictured: Diane, Jamie, Jordana, and a million other NPHS buddies
Giselle S. says:
So crazy! When I lived in Socal, I worked with the daughter of the owner of Lamppost Pizza. We used to go there as well. It was an old-fashioned, family sit down and eat kind of pizza place. How sad that that type of pizza is going out of style.
Also, now I think I know what town you live in…since we lived so close to Lamppost ourselves. I worked at a private school there. What a fabulous town to raise a child!
molly says:
Aw, what a bummer!
I am glad you got to take Annie to the Lamppost and have one last meal there with your friends.
Leigh Elliott says:
I can totally relate. I grew up in a pretty small town, but one town over we had a “Pizza Hut” and I loved going there. Mostly I just loved the breadsticks and personal pan pizzas. The night of my 8th grade “prom” I had my first “date” there. Really all it was though was me sitting at the opposite end of a long table from the guy I was “dating” and playing songs on the jukebox that I just “knew” would tell him how I felt about him. When I was 16 I got a job there working the salad bar and eventually working my way up to being a waitress, which was a pretty dig deal for me. I knew all the songs on the jukebox and at the end of my shift ALWAYS played “New York New York” by Sinatra as I mopped the floor. I’d bust out of this town someday!
I met 2 future boyfriends there, poured and served my first draft beer from the taps when I turned 18, and always came in to visit the staff when I came home from college.
About five years ago, it was sold and turned into a diner. It’s so bizarre to drive by there and see “Eddies diner” on the sign sitting on the familiar red roof.
Amanda says:
Oh, I know she will. You are raising her to be loyal and to love life. Good job, mama!
Tina says:
Noooooooo!!!!!! Lamppost was such a big part of our childhood! Thanks for posting those pictures, it brings back such good memories. It hasn’t changed a bit..
Nicole says:
Oh, that’s too bad! My husband grew up in N.P. , too, and I remember going to the Lamppost with him when we were dating!
Debbie B says:
I know it’s not the same, but there is another Lamppost not too far from you in Oak Park. My kids are grown now, but we also have memories of all of the soccer, football, basketball and birthday parties that we attended there over the years. Fun times. Yeah it won’t be the exact same as your hometown Lamppost, but if you find yourself really craving the pizza and video games it’s not far and could do the trick.
Sarah says:
It is?! Oh, that makes me so sad I worked at Lamppost in high school at the OP one though, not NP. Is OP closing too? Oh, I hate change.
Amanda says:
RIP your Lamppost! We have one in Davis and I’d be so sad if it closed
Tara says:
Oh how sad! We LOVED Lamppost pizza growing up! I haven’t been there in 20 years but man, our whole family still thinks it’s the best pizza ever.
Lissa says:
So so sad to see old childhood places falling by the wayside. I feel your sadness! I grew up in a SMALL town (pop. 310) I went to school in the tiny town schoolhouse from K-2nd grade. There were just 3 classrooms for K-8th grade and only 7 kids in my class. In this day and age, just imagine the closeness of us 7 kids?! This was the same school that my dad had attended. After 2nd grade, the school was closed. I went off (along with half my class) to another elementary school and that schoolhouse stood vacant. When I was about 15 or so, the land was sold to a housing developer and that great solid concrete schoolhouse was knocked down with a giant wrecking ball. I drove gravel country roads around town for weeks in order to not witness the heartbreaking devastation of my childhood. Only a couple years later I moved out of state and now every time I return “home” and drive into that tiny town, I am struck by how WEIRD it is to not see the school and playgrounds there. Where did they g0?
P.s. They dumped the rubble from the school in a gully on the country road I lived on. I stopped my car one day and picked up a piece….with the paint on it I recognized from the “big kids” bathroom on the second floor. I have saved this piece of concrete and keep meaning to get it engraved with the name and date of my school. It’s a tangible reminder of my childhood….one which has been erased from future kids’ memories.
BTW, I’m 29 and I grew up in Hoskins, Nebraska.
Renee says:
Oh no! Lamppost is closing!! wth! So many memories from that place! Glad you got to take Annie there before it closed!