REVAMPED CAFE 36 SPORTS MAKEOVER

About 40 longtime friends and colleagues, members of the news media and neighboring business owners braved the frigid temps Thursday night to attend a viewing party of Fox-TV's popular "Kitchen Nightmares" restaurant makeover show starring renowned chef Gordon Ramsay -- and featuring last year's revitalization of Terry and Carol Gilmer's French/American bistro, Cafe 36.

As the Gilmers intently watched the constructively critical show that caused a self-proclaimed welcome turnaround to the dream they made into reality by taking over the place just over three years ago, their kitchen and floor staff, best friends and colleagues enjoyed wine and appetizers as they anxiously awaited how the program would be received.

"The phones were ringing off the hook," said nearby family restaurateur Steve Palmer of Palmer Place Restaurant and Bier Garten on La Grange Road, immediately following the show, from his seat closest to the kitchen. "Way to go, Terry!"

During the show, the Gilmers were more than frank with Ramsay about their relative lack of experience in dealing with kitchen staff, food preparation, even marketing themselves and attracting new customers to the already established business formerly owned and operated for more than a decade by Reinhard Barthel Sr.

"We went from not knowing our --- from a hole in the ground from knowing our --- from a hole in the ground," said Carol after the show, who combined her experience in banking with her husband's career managing country clubs when they took over the place in late 2005.

Terry Gilmer, who fired a chef who was literally grilled by Ramsay during his fall 2008 visit to the restaurant (during which time the globally popular chef gave Cafe 36 an overnight makeover that brightened up the interior, redesigned the menu, the kitchen layout and the food handling and deployed a unique method of replacing all their dinnerware ... in the Police Department's gun range, no less), admitted if he were to do it all over again, he'd have changed the name.

(Oddly enough, while Cafe 36 sounds tony and a bit unique, the name actually was derived from the location at which Barthel's predecessor first opened: at 36 South La Grange Road, now the home of Bella Bacino's Trattoria-Pizzeria, where he also had an interest. That was before Barthel prior owner moved the place after buying into to a retail condo storefront on Calendar Court that was formerly housed by a locally popular clothing store.)

By this past weekend, restaurant spokesman Chris Comes of Chicago-based Ripson Communications said the national broadcast exposure spurred "a tremendous surge of customers" to pay a visit, call the staff and owners -- and/or log on to the company website, www.cafe36.com, which went into virtual overdrive.

"We had thousands of unique visitors on the website," said Comes, noting the response came from all over the United States and even Canada.

The Gilmers reported hearing from new and old friends and dozens of potential customers from as far away as Phoenix and Houston, from New York to Los Angeles -- urging them on and wishing them success -- some even promising to include the new and improved restaurant in the itinerary of their next trip to Chicago.

Watch this space Monday for a more comprehensive story about the attention showered on La Grange and one of its hot new eateries.