Part of exterior sign knocked down in a recent storm.

People can write about 24-hour diners in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles. Been there, done that. What’s most amazing about Bill’s Toasty Shop is that it is open around the clock in rural Taylorville, IL. (pop. 10,200.) Taylorville is about 30 miles southeast of Springfield.

Taylorville has gritty and feisty roots. My mom’s parents arrived in neighboring Carlinville and then Taylorville around 1920 after emigrating from Lithuania. My grandfather found work in the Peabody Coal Mines of the region. In April 1932, miners went on strike against the United Mine Workers, and by September, the Progressive Miners of America were formed to take on the United Mine Workers, led by John L. Lewis. My grandfather stayed with Lewis and crossed the picket line. My uncle and my grandparents’ friends joined the Progressives.

Relationships were severed. In the spring of 1933, the National Guard was called to occupy Taylorville. Mom remembered running through tear gas as an 11-year-old. Those events stay with you forever.

As the decades passed, fortunes shifted. The mines faded away, and the local economy took a hit. Bill’s Toasty Shop was always one heartbeat.

I know some of this because we spent the summer of 1966 in Taylorville. Swift & Company transferred my dad from Columbus, Ohio, to Chicago, and we decamped in Taylorville while our house was being built in suburban Naperville, IL.

And Bill’s Toasty Shop was part of the small town fabric. Rough around the edges but sweet inside.

Food for thought, 11/5/25 (D. Hoekstra photo.)

Bill’s Toasty Shop opened in May 1940 at 111 N. Main St. The original owners were Iven and Catherine Vaughan. The tiny diner has just ten counter stools and a pair of two-seater booths. One vintage sign says, “Meet  your friends at Bill’s Toasty Shop…Capacity 10,000 (10 at a time.)”

As a kid in 1966, I didn’t spend much time at Bill’s Toasty because the place was filled with strange old people. I do recall a baseball card shop near Bill’s Toasty Shop, and the diner was within walking distance of the 1,200-seat Capitol Theatre on the square, which has since closed and been remodeled.

Over the years, I’ve returned to Bill’s Toasty Shop a couple of times. I interviewed local journalist Tom Latonis there for my 2022 “Beacons in the Darkness” book, and in April 1998, I drove from Chicago to Taylorville to catch a Merle Haggard concert at the now-defunct Nashville North. I adjourned to Bill’s after the show, as Charley Pride once did. The diner’s wall includes a May 4, 1997 clipping featuring a sort-of-startled Pride sitting at the counter with a few compatriots under the headline “Charley Pride Dines at Bill’s Toasty.”

Bill’s Toasty Shop is now owned by Justin Gatton and his mother, Debbie. Justin spent 13 years as a cook behind the counter. They purchased the restaurant in April 2023 from Justin’s former boss Candy Scallion, whose family had operated the toasty since 1983. Still not a Bill in sight.

“The history is why we bought it,” Justin said during a late afternoon conversation at Bill’s. “You don’t make many changes to a place that is this old,” said Justin, 38. “A little clean up here and there, but no menu changes. We’re not sure where the Bill comes from. If we change the name we change the whole thing.” Bill’s Toasty Shop is unadulterated Americana. Justin is low key. He will not be confused with Grant Achatz.

Justin Gatton (R) and Toasty regular “The Chief.” (D. Hoekstra portrait.)

Bill’s is poised for a cultural rebirth. A few businesses are opening up on the square. There is a popular Taylor Swift tribute band called Taylorville. A few months ago I contacted them to see if they were from Taylorville. I was told they got their name from seeing the Taylorville water tower. The band is based in St. Louis but in early summer they performed at Manners Park in the real Taylorville. Lead singer-songwriter Sinead Fahey wrote me, “The crowd was lovely and coincidentally our merch T-shirts were the colors of the local middle school and high school, so that was pretty cool!” No one at Bill’s Toasty knew about this band.

Taylor Swift has said chicken tenders are her favorite food, hint, hint.

Bill’s Toasty Shop is known for colorful menu items such as the “Burger Tower Challenge,” which starts with a six-patty burger with a choice of side and milkshake for $29.99.

The challenge was created by a long-ago employee. The prize includes a t-shirt and a $10 gift certificate. The event maxes out at a 10-patty burger with a choice of side and a milkshake for $45.99, and the prize is a t-shirt and a $20 gift certificate. The rules are that the challenge must be completed in 45 minutes or less and that sharing is prohibited. Justin said a couple of challenges are met on a weekly basis. He has never attempted to scale the tower.

Daily specials include the Monday BBQ sandwich meal ($9), the noted Central Illinois Horseshoe (a mash-up of Texas toast, hamburger, fries and cheese sauce) with drink on Friday ($12) and a breakfast horseshoe with drink ($10) on Sunday. The grilled cheese chili horseshoe ($14) is unique to Bill’s Toasty. There are 20 milkshakes served in 16-ounce cups that include blueberry, peanut butter, blue raspberry, all made with real vanilla based ice cream. The French Toast milkshake was recently discontinued. Alcohol is not served and credit cards are not accepted. There is no jukebox.

Dozens of framed souvenir checks from customers across the world hang on the wall. Toasty salutations include “2,415 miles from Seattle, WA. to Taylorville, IL for a Bill’s Toasty Treat…” “We came to Bill’s Toasty 8/7/2018 for our 24-year-anniversary breakfast” and a drawing of a guitar and musical notes stating, “Nashville Approved.” There are checks with endorsements from Germany and Jamaica.

Bill’s maintains its colorful 24-hour ethic because of the diverse customer rotation. Area farmers show up as early as four in the morning. Taylorville is the county seat of Christian County so government workers roll in after 9 a.m. Weekend nights are big for the younger party crowd. Cops and firemen eat at any hour.

My childhood mom remembered when uptown Taylorville rocked. The coal mines were in full swing, and on weekends, folks couldn’t find parking on the square. Movie theaters were full on Friday and Saturday nights and promotions included “Bank Night” and “Family Night.” Sometimes a set of dishes were given away to lucky customers. A 24-hour diner caught the tailwinds of this action.

Break in the action.

Taylorville mayor Bruce Barry is a Bill’s regular. He drops in on Sunday after church and at least once a week for lunch. His father Jim Barry worked at the Peabody Mine No. 10 between 1972 and 1992. Once the world’s largest underground coal mine, it closed in 1994.

“I’ve been going to Bill’s Toasty for years,” the 67-year-old Barry said earlier this week. “My dad used to take us there after basketball practice at St. Mary’s grade school.  I like bacon and eggs on Sunday morning and their horseshoe. Their (cheddar or pepper jack) cheeseballs are pretty good.”

The beautiful thing about Barry showing up at Bill’s Toasty Shop is that he can have sensible debates with constituents instead of social media sniping. “All the time,” said Barry, who has been Taylorville mayor for eight years.

I lamented that no one in the toasty world could tell me who Bill was. Within three minutes, Barry texted me the phone number of Larry Iven Vaughan, the 81-year-old son of the original owner. A retired telephone equipment technician, Larry still lives in Taylorville. His father’s brother was William, a.k.a. Bill.

“They were born and raised in north of Evansville, Indiana,” Vaughan said in an engaging conversation. “In 1939 Bill, my mom and dad came to Illinois. They took off and landed in Pana (16 miles from Taylorville). My father worked at a restaurant in Pana and wanted to start a restaurant of his own. You have to remember one thing. Bill was a ‘Class A’ personality. Anyway, Swain and Meyers was a restaurant supply business in Decatur that knew my dad and said, ‘Iven, we just equipped a place in Taylorville, which is the current Bill’s Toasty. The deal fell through, and they contacted dad.  I don’t know what was there prior to this. Some people say a restaurant opened in 1932, but it wasn’t Bill’s Toasty Shop.”

So Iven, Catherine and third-wheel Bill worked out a deal. As they got ready to open the doors, they still did not have a restaurant name. “So my Uncle Bill, being the ‘Class A’ personality said, ‘Bill’s Toasty Shop!,” Vaughan recalled. “My dad was not the type to argue. They opened the shop and Uncle Bill was there maybe three or four days and he disappeared. Nobody could find him for ten years. The toasty part was never discussed. But Bill was always in the conversation. He was ‘different’.”  Vaughan said Uncle Bill re-emerged and returned to Indiana. Bill never returned to Bill’s Toasty Shop. Iven and Catherine owned the restaurant from 1940 to 1963.

This is original reporting you won’t find anywhere else.

Ron Nichols, known as “The Chief” to Bill’s regulars, started coming to the diner in 1963 when he was attending high school in nearby Assumption. He became a regular in 1980 when he began working at the Taylorville fire department, which was then around the corner. “I’d have breakfast and coffee before my shift started,” said Nichols. 79. “And come back twice a day. I now live on the other side of town but I’m still a regular. I like the BLT’s. You can’t beat the milk shakes.” Nichols was a Taylorville fireman for 31 years.

When asked about his favorite Bill’s memory, Nichols answered, “I can’t say. And I won’t say. But I will say everybody comes back. We had youth ministers from our church who moved to Georgia. They came back and I said, ‘I’ll take you out for supper, wherever  you want to go.’ And they said, ‘We want a Bill’s cheeseburger.’ That was fine.”

Justin uses local purveyors like Ron’s Produce, started in 1979 in Taylorville and meat products comes from  Humphrey’s Market, family owned in Springfield since 1932.  “It’s hard for a mom and pop to stay in business,” said Justin, who was born and raised in Taylorville. He is not married and has no children. He explained, “Prices are constantly changing. Wages are constantly going up. Utility costs are going up.” And then, like so many of us, Justin didn’t have anything else to say.

I saved a Bill’s Toasty paper menu from my January 2020 meeting with Latonis. A small cheeseburger was $3.25, and a 2-egg breakfast with toast was $2.99. In November 2025, a small cheeseburger was $5.50, and the 2-egg and toast breakfast was $4. Bill’s Toasty is not part of the DoorDash system. “We try to keep it old school as much as possible,” Justin said. He has more of a presence at the diner than his 63-year-old mother. Bill’s Toasty employs ten people.

Word of Bill’s Toasty Shop has reached pockets of the Chicago area. Long-time Chicago music fan Steve Mendel has visited the diner on the recommendation of Pat Dailey, a drummer and fan of the Elvis Brothers. “I met Pat in the early 1980s when I’d see the Elvis Brothers,” Mendel recalled from his Brookfield, IL. home. “Pat is from Taylorville. He played in Taylorville last September at his 50^th high school reunion with other alumni. His dad was a judge at the courthouse on the square. I never heard of Taylorville. I went to Taylorville a few times with Pat and he took me to Bill’s Toasty Shop.”

Mendel, 62, has a soft spot for old-school establishments like the defunct Bucket O’ Suds in Chicago and lost diners like Jeri’s Grill in Chicago. “I got a double cheeseburger and a milkshake at Bill’s,” Mendel said. “What I liked about it is that they poured it in the glass and put that metal mixture with the extra right next to your glass. How could a small town like this support a 24-hour diner? The hometown charm and nostalgia are what got me. There’s no flash.”

Nicki Starkweather at work (D. Hoekstra photo)

Nicki Starkweather, 44,  was the no-nonsense cook during my visit. The Springfield resident has worked on and off at Bill’s Toasty since 2017. She was making a cheeseburger and horseshoe in the middle of her 1:30 p.m.-10 p.m. Wednesday shift.

Starkweather does the 70-mile round-trip commute because of community. “In Taylorville, my name is Nicki,” she explained. “I have a name, a personality. People enjoy visiting with me. Whereas a cook position in Springfield, more often I’m in the kitchen, it’s just a $2 tip and ‘Thank you, ma’am.’ You don’t get the personality in the city that you do out here.” That’s the memorable gift of a small town 24-hour diner. Time is measured by kindness.

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