On the west side of North Dixie Highway, just north of Momence City Hall, two old buildings stand next to each other. One was the First National Bank, built in 1906. The other was the Reising Ford dealership, with its service garage. The bank and the dealership left long ago, and apart from some office use, both buildings sat mostly empty for years, according to the Daily Journal's November 2025 preview of the project.
Today the pair operates as The Grand Marsh, at 103 N. Dixie Hwy. The two buildings run on two different schedules. The garage serves lunch, and the bank serves dinner. The two schedules overlap only part of the week, and that overlap is the most useful thing to know before you head downtown.
Two buildings, two clocks
The Grand Marsh posts these hours for its two restaurants:
- Bragozzo Cafe, in the former Ford dealership, serves lunch Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
- Bragozzo Grand, in the former bank, serves dinner Thursday through Saturday, 5 to 10 p.m.
Put those side by side and the week falls into three patterns:
| Day | Bragozzo Cafe | Bragozzo Grand |
|---|---|---|
| Tuesday, Wednesday | Lunch, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. | Closed |
| Thursday, Friday, Saturday | Lunch, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. | Dinner, 5 to 10 p.m. |
| Sunday, Monday | Not on the posted schedule | Not on the posted schedule |
So a Tuesday visit gets you a sandwich and an espresso, and a Thursday visit can stretch from lunch into dinner. On the three days both rooms are open, there's a two-hour gap between the cafe's last lunch service and the bank's first dinner seating.
The two rooms are also about the same size. The Daily Journal reported each as roughly 60 seats, under the same roof, with the cafe to the right as you face the building from Dixie. The cafe is the bigger room in terms of hours, not seats, since it's open five days a week to the dining room's three.
The garage side, at lunch
The restaurant describes Bragozzo Cafe as a casual lunch spot with seasonal food, built for sitting down with someone or grabbing takeout. The menu is espresso, small bites, salads, sandwiches and house-made pasta, and the coffee is roasted for the restaurant by Sparrow Coffee.
The cafe menu covers a lot of ground for a lunch room:
- Baked feta
- A sausage-and-peppers sandwich
- A grouper sandwich italiano
- Fettuccine alla bolognese
- Gnocchi ai 3 pomodori
- Risotto ai funghi
The sausage sandwich also turns up in the guest comments on The Grand Marsh homepage, where one diner wrote that the sausage and pepper sandwich was delicious and another said they couldn't wait to come back to try the fried feta again. The homepage itself calls the cafe "The Locals' New Favorite Lunch Spot."
Because the cafe is open Tuesday and Wednesday and the dining room isn't, those two days are the cafe's alone. If you work downtown or are running errands near City Hall early in the week, the cafe is the half of the building that's open.
The bank side, after five
Bragozzo Grand is the evening room. The restaurant calls it an experience rooted in Northern Italian tradition, "shaped by the spirit of Venetian trade and discovery," set inside the historic First National Bank building. The kitchen is led by chef Alessandro Farinati, who was raised in Vicenza, and Laura Emme leads the beverage program and guest experience. The Daily Journal identified Farinati as a co-owner and Emme as hospitality director and sommelier.
The current dinner menu leans on Venetian-style pasta. Bigoli all'Anitra comes with a duck ragout, and Fettuccine alla Busera comes with prawns. New Zealand rack of lamb and a Marshland Burger sit on the same page, so a table can order a full Northern Italian dinner and a burger without anyone feeling out of place.
The restaurant says its menus will change with the seasons, so the November menu may not match the one posted in September. In practice, any dish listed here is a reason to ask your server what's replaced it, not a guarantee it's still on the menu.
Friday and Saturday are when the whole block lines up
On Friday and Saturday, the cafe and the dining room are both open, and so is the museum across the street.
The Earl D. Schoeffner Farm Museum is open Fridays and Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The Kankakee County Convention and Visitors Bureau lists it at 105 E. Second St. and describes a collection covering more than a century of farm life, with exhibits and ongoing educational programs. The museum's own pages describe a furnished four-room house from the 1940s, an 1870s farmhouse kitchen, antique farm tools, and Schoeffner's 1951 Massey-Harris tractor. The collection is curated by Selle-Agner Exhibits, run by Ron Selle and Darlene Agner.
That makes a full Saturday possible on one block:
- Visit the museum when it opens at 10 a.m.
- Walk across to Bragozzo Cafe for lunch, served until 3 p.m.
- Fill the gap between 3 and 5 p.m. however you like.
- Come back for a 5 p.m. or later table at Bragozzo Grand.
Friday follows the same schedule. Thursday drops the museum but keeps both restaurants. Since the museum's hours come from its own undated contact page, call 815-450-6041 before planning a day around them.
The museum also matters for parking. The Grand Marsh says there's street parking along Dixie Highway and Washington Street, and that the Earl Schoeffner Museum has let the restaurant use its lot across the street. On a Friday or Saturday, you'll be sharing that lot with museum visitors.
Reservations for both rooms go through Toast. The restaurant says reservations are highly recommended but walk-ins are accepted.
The first Saturday in December may be the busiest one of all. The City of Momence's recreation page describes an annual Christmas Gathering hosted by Main Street Momence on the first Saturday in December, ending with a community tree lighting at the park at Dixie Highway and River Street. This year, the first Saturday in December is Dec. 5. Check Main Street Momence for the time before building dinner plans around it.
The second floor, and the other old building being reused
The Grand Marsh was planned with four spaces, not two. Along with the two first-floor restaurants, the project includes a second-floor event room above Bragozzo Cafe and three hotel suites. The event space page describes 2,000 square feet and takes inquiries through an online form, and the homepage describes the room as filled with natural light. Ask the restaurant directly about dates for a party or an overnight guest.
The project took a long time to arrive. The Daily Journal described it as "more than 20 years into the concept stage" and reported that Momence businessman Jeff Van Drunen, his wife Amy, and two partners were behind it. The same article quoted Momence Chamber of Commerce President Deb Dobben on why the building mattered to her:
"Just to see people investing in a historic building like this means so much. It's refreshing to see people embracing the community."
That article also put the opening in context. It reported that Momence had lost about 800 primary jobs to the closure of four manufacturing sites, and Mayor Chuck Steele said the restaurant's progress "couldn't come at a better time."
The Grand Marsh is one of two old Momence buildings now being reused, and the second is a short distance away on the city's north side. The Daily Journal reported in September 2026 that Mighty Cake Co., a family-owned Chicago wholesale bakery, bought the former Johnsonville Foods plant at 334 North St. The nearly 12-acre site sold for $2.5 million, according to Kankakee County records cited in the story. Johnsonville had said it would demolish the buildings when it announced the closure, and the mayor believed the site could be used again.
Mighty Cake makes premium handmade croissants for retail, food service and private label customers. In that September report, the company said it was aiming to start Momence production in late January to early February and expected site renovations to begin in October. The company is moving from a 40,000-square-foot site in Chicago to the 104,000-square-foot Momence plant. It planned to hire 190 people to meet its opening timeline, and the mayor said the long-term goal is a workforce of 300. The plant is expected to run 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
On North Dixie, lunch runs Tuesday through Saturday in the garage, and dinner runs Thursday through Saturday in the bank.
Our team at the Michelle Arseneau Group has spent decades watching buildings like these change hands across Kankakee County. If you own a home near downtown Momence and want to know what it's worth today, we're happy to put together a free home valuation that reflects what's actually happening on your block.
