VILLA GROVE — It took more than four months, but a Villa Grove bar and restaurant is back in business after suffering smoke and water damage from an August fire.

JR's Lounge reopened this week at 18 S. Main St., to the delight of customers who frequented the place for 29 years.

Judy Westray, who owns JR's with her husband Ralph, said they were determined to reopen the lounge "for the sake of the community," even though both are in their 70s.

"There are some new lights, new carpet and new tile, but we tried to keep it the same as it was," Judy Westray said.

"Ralph and I tromped from bar to bar 29 years ago getting ideas for it, and we decided to stick with the basic idea," she said.

For now, JR's is just serving drinks, but Westray hopes the kitchen will be open New Year's Eve so they can serve steak and shrimp dinners.

She said it may be mid-January before JR's resumes its traditional Friday and Saturday night buffets that typically include ribs, chicken, meat loaf, pork chops and casseroles.

Patrons said they were happy to have the place open again.

"I marveled at how nice it looked," said Jerry McCormick of Philo, who has taken his kids and grandkids to the buffets. "For years and years, people were able to smoke in the tavern, so it had a smoky smell to it. Now it's fresh and new."

Clancy White of Villa Grove said he and his wife Janie go to JR's on Sundays and Thursdays to watch football games. He's a Chicago Bears fan; she roots for the Green Bay Packers.

"It's like a sports bar for us," he said. "The people are really friendly, just outstanding people. It' just like 'Cheers' — everybody knows your name. When something bad happens, they sympathize with you."

The August fire — set by a 14-year-old and a 9-year-old — destroyed a vacant building at 10-12 S. Main St., and left JR's in miserable shape.

"We had to just gut it and start all over, the smoke was so bad," Judy Westray said. "We had to take all the insulation out and spray it. Everything's pretty brand spanking new."

One of the most time-consuming jobs was reinforcing the wall closest to the fire. Insurance covered the cost of repairs, which Westray estimated at roughly $300,000.

"If we were to sell it, in this town, we'd never get out of it what was put in," she said.

But for the sake of family and community, it was well-worth reopening, she added.

The lounge is very much a family establishment, with several relatives helping out.

Among them are the Westrays' two sons, Donn and Shawn; Donn's wife, Karla; and Donn and Karla's sons, Jonn and Earvin.

Before opening JR's, the Westrays lived in Decatur, where Ralph was a commodities broker and Judy tended home.

Ralph "always wanted" to operate a lounge, Judy Westray said. "We moved here when we bought the bar."

They opened at 16 S. Main St. in 1982, and moved to the current location, 18 S. Main St., two years later.

Although the Westrays knew they wanted to reopen after the fire, Judy said, she "worried" the first three months — not only about renovations, but also about Shawn, who was "very sick and spent a lot of time at the hospital."

But he pulled out of it, and she felt better about the situation by November, she said.

"We're still trying to get things organized the way they were," she said, noting that a week ago they still had "150 boxes to be unboxed."

White said 30 to 35 patrons were there when he visited the bar Monday.

There's sure to be a crowd for New Year's Eve, McCormick said.

"They'll have people coming in," he said. "They've been waiting a long time for it to open back up."