The Lanford Lunch Box

The Lunch Box in 2019

The Lanford Lunch Box was a successful restaurant located in Lanford, Illinois. Usually known as just "The Lunch Box," it was co-owned by Roseanne along with her sister Jackie, her mother Bev, her friend Nancy and her adversary Leon.

Origins

The restaurant started out as an idea by Jackie, who drove a grocery truck at the time and often stopped at numerous diners and enjoyed the loose meat sandwiches. Realizing those places were always successful, she and Roseanne went in together to start a local version of the franchise. The name of the restaurant originated from Roseanne's son, D.J. Conner, but the money to pay for it came from their mother, Beverly, and best friend, Nancy.

History

The restaurant opened shortly after several disasters occurred with The Conner Family. Roseanne and Jackie had just lost their father, and Dan lost his business. Roseanne had lost her job at the lunch counter at Rodbells Department Store, and she was interested in Jackie's restaurant idea. The Conners evidently could not pay their bills either. After borrowing money from Jackie, they still needed a more permanent solution. Beverly still had the money from her divorce and more after selling her burial plot to Roseanne and Jackie's stepmother. She effectively became majority owner as the only other person that had some money to open the restaurant was Nancy. Beverly made the decision to display paintings on the restaurant walls.

To acquire a suitable recipe, Jackie brought them many tavern sandwiches from different places to taste test. After they found a recipe, they decided to buy the old pizza restaurant, later opening it as the Lunch Box in Late 1992. Starting out, the place was very successful, but the staff had many challenges. For one, Beverly became an active partner in the restaurant, which caused considerable stress for her daughters. They soon encountered Leon again, Roseanne's old boss at Rodbells, but this time, he was in a position of authority again as a health inspector. Due to Bev's aggrandizing personality, Roseanne and Jackie practically demanded that Beverly become a silent partner, but she had her revenge by reportedly selling her shares to Leon, who was now acting like Roseanne's boss yet again.

With Leon making even more unfair decisions than Beverly ever did, Roseanne had more stress than before. She was working late by herself in the Lunch Box one night she got mugged by a lunatic. Dan decided that each worker needed to work in pairs at night and tried discussing it with Leon, the only male worker. Sent by Roseanne to talk to him, Dan thought it was pointless to talk to Leon, but Leon demanded Dan to remove Roseanne's position from The Lunch Box, essentially confirming Roseanne's fears that he was trying to oust her from the Lunch Box. Leon even blamed Roseanne for the mugging incident instead of protecting her. Dan refused his offer and even told Leon he was going to tell Roseanne what Leon said, warning Leon that unless decreased the stress he was putting on Roseanne, he would hurt him.

Another less important attack came from Darlene Conner, Roseanne's daughter, who hated The Lunch Box. Her various vegetarian activist campaigns threatened what was considered the Conner family's main source of income, but four years later, she was behind the counter with her sister, Becky Conner for a punishment. Becky herself had became an alcoholic, and their brother D.J. Conner worked there too after stealing a car and crashing it. As punishment, he worked at the Lunch Box as well. At one point, Roseanne even used the restaurant's phone to bust D.J. and Darlene for skipping school and lying about it. Roseanne soon met Flo and her son Elijah, whose family sold restaurant equipment. Eventually, Roseanne pretended to ground D.J. so they wouldn't have to listen to Elijah's sporadic talking, mumbling, and singing. However, when The Lunch Box replaced their stove, their company's lax records department kept delivering multiple stoves to them. Roseanne wanted to keep or sell them, but D.J., now very religious, got angry and appealed to her good sense.

Four years after opening, Roseanne discovered a new restaurant opening across the street that offered a spotless atmosphere, salad buffets and tavern sandwiches with lean greaseless meat. Nancy brought over their sandwiches to check out, and Roseanne confessed she loved them. After losing all of her customers to them, Roseanne and Jackie broke into the restaurant to vandalize it and render it an unfit work place, but it closed down anyway soon after. It is unrevealed if their chicanery had any part in it.

Five years later, Roseanne seemingly won the lottery in excess of $108,000,000.00 and left the Lunch Box to Nancy and Leon to run themselves. However, this all turned out to be part of a fiction that Roseanne had written in trying to become a writer along with other fabricated events, such as Dan suffering a heart attack and dying. In actuality, it was later revealed that Roseanne ended up having to close the place down, but for unknown reasons. However, unknown to anyone, Bev still retained custody of the site, allowing a Chinese restaurant to move into it. When the 2019 crash forced it to shut down, Jackie wanted to re-open it as the Lunch Box once more, but when she attempted to buy the property, and she became shocked to discover that Bev still owned it and had been owning it secretly. She also learned that Bev had made Darlene the custodian of her estate, essentially giving her control of the property. Over several weeks, Jackie and Becky demanded that Darlene allow them to open up The Lunch Box again, but Darlene kept refusing them, instead opting to wait out for more money, which she believed was the best decision for her family. However, when Beverly moved in with Dan, Becky fled to move in with Jackie. Even Darlene's daughter, Harris Healy, left Dan's house, and Dan finally put his foot down on the inter-family feud. Seeing that the family is being torn apart even before the restaurant is even opened, Darlene relented.

Seeking to make peace, Beverly gave Jackie and Becky a plant, wanting nothing else to do with the restaurant. However, when they knocked down a wall to install a new oven, which would also bring historical significance to the structure, they discovered the real reason the Chinese restaurant had moved out was on account of Beverly neglecting to do maintenance on the building. There was also an infestation of mold which wiped out an infestation of rats. The building practically needed to be reconstructed with Dan even telling Jackie she had to give up her life savings to pay for it or give up the restaurant. Even after Jackie spent her life savings on the work, it seemed very unlikely that they would be able to pay for any additional expenses. She soon decided to delay or cancel the restaurant entirely, but a local columnist decided to modify his article on the site, publishing a very heartfelt story on the site. The story resulted in a vast out-going of public support with many people showing up for moral and even financial support, giving Jackie and the Lunch Box things to attract regular customers. However, by the end of 2010, the site was still going under some renovations.

In 2020, Jackie began putting up large paintings of Dawn, which was not much different from what Beverly did to The Lunch Box in 1992. She also took in a cook named Emilio.

Staff

In alphabetical order by first name:

• Becky (particularly since late 2019)
• Beverly (owner since late 1992)
• Darlene (owner since late 2019)
• Dan (construction and maintenance)
• D.J. (founder of the name)
• Dawn (supplier)
• Dwight (chef)
• Emilio (chef)
• Florence (supplier)
• Jackie (founder of 1992 and 2019 menus)
• Leon (manager hired by Beverly)
• Molly (part time temporary worker as punished by Roseanne)
• Nancy (minority owner since late 1992)
• Roseanne (founder of the waffle bar)
• Stacey (chef and waitress)

Since Season 10 was in development around April 2017, the tavern sandwich restaurant most likely went out of business in 2016, putting Roseanne and Jackie out. It is not stated when or if Nancy sold her share of the building.

Menu

Before 1992

• Pizzas

Since 1992

• Tavern Sandwiches
• Coffee
• Tea
• Ice
• Water
• Sodas, but initially with no soda fountain
• Bags of chips
• Desserts, in a pie carousel
• Waffles

Until Late 2019

• Chinese foods

Since Late 2019

• Stews
• Steaks

Since Roseanne's 10th season was in development as early as April 2017, It is most likely that the tavern sandwich restaurant shut down in 2016 with the Chinese place taking over by the end of 2016.

In Our Universe

Reviews

According to Yelp and Restaurant Guru, The Lunch Box was located at 1314 Connor Street Prospect Heights, IL 60070 - 1426. They also list another location: 714 Delaware Street, Lewistown, Illinois, USA, 61542 - 1105.

Roseanne And Tom's Big Food Diner

Around the same time The Lanford Lunch Box was developed, Tom Arnold and Roseanne developed a restaurant called Roseanne and Tom's Big Food Diner. They opened it in January 1993 and closed it around the same time the Roseanne in the Hood episode aired. It included merchandise. It was located in on Elm Street in Eldon, Iowa. These two restaurants are based off of The Canteen Lunch. The menu of all three places are identical.

Canteen Lunch

Canteen Lunch In The Alley is another restaurant with an identical menu as The Lunch Box, with the sandwich known as a Canteen Sandwich. They have been open since 1927. It has an open kitchen design with stools around the counter. Since a tavern sandwich has loose meat, they have to be wrapped in thick wax paper. Spoons are also included to gather loose meat that fell out. They are located at 112 East 2nd Street Ottumwa, Iowa 52501 - 2925. It moved there in 1936, and in 2000 supposed to be turned into a parking garage. Rejecting offers to move, they built the parking garage in 2004. Canteen Lunch is still open inside the parking garage. It still has its sign "Ottumwa's Landmark". In 2018, it started a yearly eating contest.

Maid-Rite

Maid-Rite is a Tavern Sandwich franchise that has over 100 restaurants. Many have been open for a long time, including the first four locations are still open today. At least one of these locations is added to The National Register Of Historic Places. The headquarters are located in Urbandale, Iowa, which is where Tom Arnold is from.