Pete Adam opened the first Ariston in Carlinville in 1924 beside the original alignment of Route 66. After the highway was rerouted in 1929, he moved his cafe to Litchfield, across the street from this site, beside the new Route 66, and this building opened in 1935. One of the oldest operating restaurants on Route 66, the Ariston moved with the highway through Illinois, and three generations later the Adam family continued to offer fine dining to highway travelers. In 1938, delivery man Jesse Johnson regularly stopped for lunch at the Ariston and sat in the same booth, where he proposed to waitress Mattie Stogsdill Anderson. Among its famous diners were Vice Presidents Henry Wallace and Hubert Humphrey and big band leader Tommy Dorsey.
