Debbie John is trying to seize an opportunity her parents never had.

John opened the Sapphire Restaurant and Ruby Lounge earlier this month in the building that formerly housed Chandler’s Bar and Grill.

The new establishment is a living memorial of sorts to John’s parents, Bud and Bev Ridge, who died in a semi-truck accident in 1985.

“This is a business that they always wanted to get into themselves,” John said. “The Sapphire was mom’s birthstone and the ruby was dad’s.”

John said her parents both came up the ranks in the restaurant/banquet business before becoming a truck driving team.

“They worked at the original Holiday Inn here in Macomb for years,” John said. “My mom worked her way up from a waitress to banquet manager to the bell director and she was also the director of the Holiday Inn in Muscatine (Iowa). My dad used to work as a maitre d’ down in New Orleans. After he got out of the service, he got into the wait staff business and gone to bartending school to become a licensed bartender.”

John decided her parents’ dream of a family business shouldn’t die with them. After 31 years working at the Western Illinois University Physical Plant, John retired and along with her brothers Jeff and David Ridge, started looking into properties to open a restaurant.

Originally, John was looking into trying to lease the old Holiday Inn building until she found out Chandler’s was going to be available.

“This one came up for sale and we started talking about it,” she said. “The size of the banquet rooms, the lounge and the restaurant, the entire setup was just so much our mom and dad it just seemed more fitting.”

John hasn’t changed much about the restaurant in the transition. The outside and inside of the building still looks relatively the same.

“I left the Chandler’s sign up for now because with students and parents coming into town, if they are looking for a place to eat, they have a sign that shows them that this is a restaurant,” John said. “But we are working on a new sign.”

Look close inside the building, though, and you can start to see how John has made the restaurant her own. Or rather, how she has made it her parents.

Take, for instance, the blue linen napkins. The blue reflects the sapphire theme.

Or take the vase of yellow roses and other flowers up front. The arrangement was the same as John’s wedding bouquet, and yellow roses were her mom’s favorite.

Even the menu features memories of Bev and Bud. Though she has kept most of Chandlers’ menu in tact, Jeff Ridge, who is the kitchen manager and head cook, has come up with several new items including different cuts of pork, chicken and seafood.

The shrimp recipe, fittingly named the “sapphire shrimp,” is something Bev liked to eat. Eventually, the menu will feature a “ruby ribeye” after Bud.

The banquet rooms upstairs in the establishment also carry on the gemstone theme.

The main dining room will be called the Diamond room after John’s husband Fred who died earlier this year. The smaller upstairs banquet room will be called the Topaz room after John and her brother David’s birthstone. The banquet facilities can serve up to 300 people.

David will be the restaurant’s maintenance supervisor as well as a part time cook. John’s sons Kyle and Shuan John will also work at the restaurant. Kyle is also a cook and Shaun John works as a host and an evening manager.

The restaurant has been opened on Monday through Thursday nights from 5 to 9 p.m. and Friday nights from 5 to 10 p.m. Eventually, John said she would like to open on Sundays and during the week for lunch.

She also plans to have a grand opening celebration in October.

“We kind of wanted a soft opening to work out the little glitches,” She said. “Our parents’ anniversary was Oct. 21. We wanted to have the grand opening during that time.”