BRIDGEPORT — Restaurateur Erik “Rico” Nance was a year old when, in 1979, he and his family were the victims of a racist attack outside the old Bridgeport Restaurant.
The Nance family, including several young kids, sat in their car near the corner of 35th and Halsted streets when the people who lived in the apartments above the restaurant threw eggs and shouted racist slurs at them, Rico Nance said.
When Rico’s father, Willis, got out of the car, about a dozen white men came after him with baseball bats. The kids in the car ran for safety in different directions. Rico’s cousin, John Nance, was 11 years old at the time and remembers being terrified.
“What could I do? I was a little boy. I wanted to fight, but, yeah…” John Nance said, trailing off.
Nance’s late father ran to the doors of the Bridgeport Restaurant for refuge and to phone for help, but the staff refused to let him in, Rico Nance said.
Now — 45 years later — the family has opened their own diner in the former Bridgeport Restaurant building at 3500 S. Halsted St.
The retro themed Stussy’s Diner — owned and operated by the Nance family — soft opened Aug. 6, with the family using the business as a chance to heal an old wound. A ribbon cutting and grand opening will be held in the fall.
“My daddy always said if he fell down to the ground [that day], he would have been dead,” Rico Nance said. “[Now] the same place that has plagued our family through an act of racism is gonna be the same one that’s gonna send not only my daughter but all of his grandkids to college.”
A Retro Vibe And A Family Affair
Walking into Stussy’s Diner now, you’d never guess the building once held a painful memory for the Nances.
Inside the brightly colored diner, Rico Nance sings hellos to old friends while he works in the kitchen. Sporting a pink ribbon around her neck, his sister and managing operator, Christina Nance, applauds a perfectly crafted milkshake created by one of the servers. John Nance, a chef at the diner, offers quips and smiles as he passes them in the narrow aisles between the pink booths.
Rico Nance and creative director Dahlia Beckett have chosen to combat the stain of the building’s past for the Nance family by dousing it in pink. Lots and lots of pink.
The color scheme is an homage to Rico Nance’s “very girly,” pink-loving 17-year-old daughter Aniah “Stussy” Nance, who is the restaurant’s namesake as well as a part owner and sometimes apprentice at the business.
The design is also a shout out to the brighter colors of the 50s diner aesthetic, with a modern bend. In fact, the family has taken the diner vibe and turned it into a unique eating experience.
There are diner staples like pastel-colored booths and counter seating as well as classic menu items like milkshakes with a cherry on top. But Stussy’s also sports plenty of neon lighting and signs with more modern messages like “slay” and “what’s tea?”
“I wanted it to be different. I wanted it to stand out,” said Beckett, who also chose to dress the walls in collages with shout-outs to iconic women from the 50s, like Marilyn Monroe and Dorothy Dandridge.
The servers wear old school waitress dresses and aprons or 50s-style milkman attire, (and eventually there will be a hostess on roller skates, Beckett said. The aesthetic might be retro, but the restaurant is serving up much more modern and social media friendly dishes than you’d find at a diner in the 50s.
You’ll find the diner staples like omelets, steak and eggs, burgers and shakes. But you’ll also see a hint of the creativity that Nance displays at his other restaurants, including Hyde Park steakhouse Chemistry Chicago.
The menu, created with help from Chef Wavy Bradley and Chef Rah Muhammad, includes a birria ramen dish and pink pancakes, for example. There are creative twists on standard fare, including pancake tacos, a flight of Stussy’s unique french toast flavors and an option to have your omelet served “sushi roll” style.
A ‘Safe Haven’ For Everyone
Although the family’s connection to the building on South Halsted has long been a grim one, Rico Nance said there isn’t an ounce of bitterness or anger in their new endeavor.
In fact, part of the reason the owners decided to keep the diner aesthetic was to pay homage to Bridgeport Restaurant, which served diner food as a staple in the neighborhood for over 75 years. It closed two years ago when its owners (who did not own the restaurant when the attack against the Nances happened) decided to retire.
The family took down the original Bridgeport Restaurant sign on the outside of the building, but the original sign has been preserved, they said.
New to the area, the family is eager to become a part of the community, Rico Nance said. He and his family live in Hyde Park, where he has opened several restaurants, including Soul Shack and Litehouse Whole Food Grill.
“This community is really about their community. They stan,” Christina Nance said. “We’re new here so we’re like, ‘What do you guys like? What do you want? We’re here to serve you. Thank you for welcoming us into your community. We feel supported.’”
Stussy’s Diner also highlights the progress Bridgeport has made in facing its past as a neighborhood violently hostile to Black residents — and the Black business owners blazing a new path in the neighborhood.
“It’s time for us to take that power back and change that narrative,” Christina Nance said.
What was once a predominantly white working class neighborhood has become increasingly diverse over the years, with Asian and Hispanic neighbors making up 60 percent of its population. Black residents are still only about 3 percent of the neighborhood’s population, however.
More recently, Black-owned businesses have launched in the neighborhood, though some have seen mixed results. A beauty business has since left Bridgeport after experiencing racist vandalism. Another was able to stay open after the community rallied to support them when their windows were smashed in 2022.
Other Black-owned businesses have since come to the area, including Sororitique and the newly opened Bridgeport Records.
The Nances say they’ve felt welcomed and supported so far and they’re hopeful that by changing the story of what one corner in Bridgeport means to one family, more change will follow.
“We wanted to turn the narrative, celebrate the change that has occurred to some degree,” Rico Nance said.
“Now, this place will support everybody,” he said. “I don’t care if you’re white, Black. If you’re in trouble, you can come here now. This place is going to become a safe haven for the neighborhood.”
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