Route 66 stands as a beacon to the world, bringing avid fans, tour groups, and curiosity seekers from almost every corner of the globe to the Mother Road’s 2,400-plus miles of variety. There is something for every traveler, from world-class exhibits to museums of the unusual. From rolling prairies to red mesas. From sleek bistros to greasy diners. From pricey boutiques to the humblest of souvenir shops.
And then there are the totally unexpected places, tucked away along a quaint street in a tiny town, with a sweet surprise awaiting unsuspecting first-time guests. Such is the Wild Hare Cafe in minute Elkhart, Illinois, a charming restaurant with its own gift shop and art gallery chock full of artfully arranged merchandise and antiques. The menu features made-from-scratch Dutch, French, South African, and American cuisine—in a village of 405 souls on the Illinois prairie. This eclectic eatery-shop-gallery seems as if it could have just been dropped onto Elkhart’s miniature main street, as if an Oz-like tornado had simply deposited it there.
The thing that gives it away, though, as having been an actual part of this historic burg is the fact that the businesses are tucked inside of the old town bank and the former dry goods store. Adding to its historic status, Elkhart was home to three-term Governor Richard Oglesby and to cattle baron John Dean Gillett. And, as if that were not enough, its most colorful citizen was unarguably Captain Adam Bogardus, world-famous—at the time, anyway—marksman and performer with Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show.
But these days, Elkhart’s most famous townspeople are undeniably Andrea and Peter Niehaus, Wild Hare hosts, owners, and chefs de cuisine. The actual narrative of how Peter and Andrea found and renovated two buildings and established three businesses on Elkhart’s main street is a bit more complicated than the tornado analogy. And although this couple is as hospitable as prairie homesteaders, and the menu that they pride themselves on offers “simple, comfort food,” their friendly demeanor and focus on the future belie their intriguing pasts. Their path to Elkhart went through several continents during their remarkable careers and is as interesting as they are.
A Colorful Past
Peter’s story began in the south of Holland, not far from the French border, where he was born, one of eight children, to Pierre and Eulalia Niehaus. Pierre inherited one of the largest farms in the area but wanted to do something besides farming, and after World War II, he felt that there were not the opportunities in his country that he’d find elsewhere. That’s why, when young Peter (actually also named Pierre) was just eight years old, his father moved the whole family 5,700 miles “as the crow flies” to South Africa for an engineering job. In the country at the southernmost tip of the African continent, Pierre expected to better support his large brood.
There, Peter grew up. “I followed in my father’s footsteps to work in engineering,” he explained. “I had experiences working in engineering in different countries, working with various architects.” Not to limit his worldview, Peter also spent time in submarines while in the Navy and pursued a life in France for a couple of years. Back in South Africa, Peter married, and the couple had three sons.
In the tiny town of Onondaga, Michigan, Andrea was born on her ancestors’ 150-year-old farm to parents Henry and Katherine Baldwin and grew up as part of an artistic family. She remembers a love of collecting old and interesting items and searching for arrowheads. Collecting, curating, and arranging objects led her, perhaps inevitably, to a career in retailing and merchandising.
Through mutual friends, Andrea met a South African man with a Michigan dental practice and itchy feet. Older than Andrea, he had first practiced in Cape Town, then moved with his first wife to England, and then, fascinated by the United States, to Michigan. That marriage, which had produced two sons, ended, but before he was ready to move again, he met Andrea. They married and kept busy with their work, until Andrea’s husband expressed a desire to return to England. For the next two years, Andrea did not work, but was thrilled to explore the beautiful English countryside and the plentiful antique shops. But two years later, the couple decided to move to Cape Town, South Africa, where her husband continued to practice dentistry. Andrea returned to merchandising before opening her own shop. She loved their life in the cultural hub that is Cape Town, but eventually, the marriage became irreconcilable and she and her husband divorced.
Common Threads
Twenty years after arriving in South Africa but single again, Andrea met Peter, also divorced, through a group of mutual friends, two of which were a couple—a South African man and an American woman from Chicago. There was a lot to talk about. As Peter and Andrea got to know each other, they realized how much they had in common—each being born into an artistic rural family, and a love of cooking and nature —despite growing up half a world away from each other.
With the background of city life and work, they often sought the outdoors together. Walking on the beach, packing a picnic hamper, and driving down a quiet road to see where it led, or spending time at a nearby nature preserve became favorite activities as the years ticked by.
Then in the 1990s, Andrea’s father back in Michigan became very ill, reminding her that it had been many years since she’d been home. At the same time, the political climate in South Africa was changing, and so they considered a move. Peter was fascinated with the US and had visited several times, although only to port cities. A decision was made, and they moved in 1998, changing continents and lifestyles. Andrea’s sister lived in Lincoln, Illinois, and she and Peter put down roots nearby on the Illinois prairie, knowing full well that historic Route 66 ran right by them. Peter looked forward to rural life while Andrea anticipated opening a shop. And, to top off their series of events, they got married in a pretty garden wedding in her sister’s backyard.
Peter established a new construction company, although he spent time with Andrea searching for the right business location. “I wanted to buy an old building or two,” Andrea recalled. “So, we looked at little towns around central Illinois.” Eventually, her sister suggested that they take a look at Elkhart because it was quaint and close to their Lincoln homes. “It’s very picturesque, very Norman Rockwellian in its feel, [with] a lovely street with buildings up and down both sides,” she said. “But I had to wait a few years before anything actually came up [for sale]. So, when the old bank building became available, my husband bought [it] for me. It was in a terrible state of disrepair, so he and a team renovated it for almost two years before I could get it open and going.”
New Hosts in Town
Horsefeathers opened in 2004 in the second building from the railroad tracks—originally the Chicago and Alton Railroad —that lie parallel to old Route 66. “It worked out quite well ... just off I-55, so it’s perfectly located,” Andrea said. “And of course, being on Route 66, we have visitors in March until October, from all over the world.” Peter chimed in, “There are a lot of people on Route 66, and we have groups that come, sometimes on motorbikes. They are often going all the way to California.”
Peter particularly enjoys meeting the travelers. “[They] come through from all over the world, and on motorcycles ... Some people are just walking it, all the way to Santa Monica. One concept that people find interesting is that this is probably one of the longest historic highways in existence. And I get to practice my languages, and visitors don’t expect to find someone here that speaks their languages from back in Europe,” said Peter. Although the couple, when pressed, will admit a bit of culture shock in moving from the cosmopolitan city of Cape Town, South Africa, to the Illinois small-town prairie, they’ve never looked back.
The following year, Geoff Ladd became Executive Director of Abraham Lincoln Tourism Bureau of Logan County (Elkhart is one of the towns) and met Andrea and Peter. “I recognized right away that they were doing a great job in helping to keep the beautiful historic downtown Elkhart district a viable place for people to come and shop—not just locals, but a lot of folks from Springfield and the surrounding area and Lincoln,” Ladd recalled. “They marketed themselves from the moment I met them in terms of Route 66. They got it from the word go.”
Two years later, the Wild Hare Cafe opened, and seamlessly blended into the gift shop. “I wanted to establish the antiques and gift side, but always intended to start an eatery, a cafe- tearoom approach, kind of a gentle approach to food.
Everything is made from scratch.” At that time, Peter retired from the construction business to indulge his love of cooking and baking. “Having the cafe, the food, the whole thing was the key,” said Andrea. “Neither of us had been in that field before, but we had a good idea what we really wanted to do. We put it together and it worked from the first month. It was quite remarkable, but because it was an atmospheric, lovely old place with homemade food.”
That “lovely old place” was the former Elkhart bank, an impressive building constructed a bit above typical Midwestern “Main Street architecture,” with brick pilasters topped with stonework detail and the distinct aura of early Art Deco design. The bank closed in 1932 and was superseded by a common parade of small-town tenants— doctors, dentists, a beauty salon, and a rec center, all before the local American Legion occupied it for some 40 years.
The couple’s next acquisition was the old dry goods store, formerly Brennan’s and later Lanterman’s, next door to the west. Andrea had had her eye on it for some time, and finally got local owner Tom Scully to sell. They linked the two buildings with an opening cut between, dubbed the new space “Little Foxes,” and added locally produced food items and kitchen- related antiques for a vintage general store look. And they added local artists’ work, which hangs throughout both buildings. “We have original art, both contemporary and vintage. My sister is an artist, and I have a lot of her work and work from other artists from the Springfield area,” Andrea said.
Of course, as in many old buildings, the staff and customers aren’t always the only souls in residence. “We’ve had some odd things [happen]. Things would be missing or there’d be noises,” Andrea explained. The bank vaults have been turned into little dining rooms, and one of them was the scene of an odd incident. “One day, one of the waitresses was in there and a table knife fell from the ceiling right down onto the middle of the table. Sometimes you hear conversations or smell cigarettes or cigar smoke ... the waitresses will say ‘jeepers, how did that happen?’”
Community Projects
Almost since the beginning, the Niehauses have partnered with Elkhart Historical Society to produce a dinner and lecture series, featuring Illinois authors and historians, plus experts in various fields. Peter has presented programs on the flowers and birds of South Africa, which he delighted in as an avid birdwatcher and gardener. “I grew up on a farm and always loved the outdoors and animals, and then I went to Africa where I always wanted to go to places like the game preserves and the national parks. Of course, South Africa has a fantastic diversity of birds, the flora and fauna, and then also the animals.”
Preservation-minded, Peter has been involved in several Logan County projects, including helping to save the historic Elkhart bridge—the Gillett Memorial Arch—which serves as a link between the cemetery and the Gillett-Oglesby estate. Despite the county’s efforts to demolish it to enable road widening, the bridge remains, now determined to be eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places.
Next, the couple began thinking about the possibility of a mural on the side of their building which would face Route 66. In 2017, the idea blossomed into reality when Andrea’s sister, artist Renee Baldwin-Sisk, designed a 36-foot-long mural. Featuring Elkhart’s historical sites, plus classic cars on Route 66, Andrea did most of the painting herself, producing their latest contribution to Elkhart.
After almost 17 years in central Illinois, the pair doesn’t spend time looking backward too often, although they will admit that sometimes they miss elements of their South African life—Peter, the water and sailing with his sons, and Andrea, cosmopolitan city life. Seeing the lure of Route 66 through the heart of Illinois firsthand for almost two decades, the pair hold no regrets as they ponder their path to the prairie in the Land of Lincoln and dream about their future.
America’s Main Street is covered with dining options that range from fast food to fine dining, new eateries, and ma and pa venues that have been around for decades. In truth, there is something for everyone. But somehow, this place is just a little special. There is not a whole lot going on down in sleepy Elkhart, but for those interested in discovering some unusual treasures, tasty home-cooked food, and a laid-back vibe that perfectly represents the heyday of Route 66 travel, the Wild Hare Cafe is waiting for you.
