CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (WCIA) — Businesses are ready as alumni from all over the country return to the U of I for homecoming. And for one campus staple, this year will be emotional.

Restaurants will be packed to the brim with Fighting Illini fans, especially with a ranked football team and at specifically at a place many call a tradition: Papa Del’s Pizza. The restaurant is looking forward to it, but they say this homecoming is a lot different because they’re missing the man who made Papa Del’s an institution.

This year, the Papa Del’s General Manager said the weekend won’t feel the same. Andrea Seten is the daughter of Robert Monti: the original founder and owner of the Champaign institution.

“It’s always been a big weekend for us, we opened on Homecoming weekend in 1970,” Seten said. “He would leave the game early to come and help us, whether we needed help or not, just to make sure everything was under control.”

Monti died in June. Seten said he lived and breathed Fighting Illini athletics.

“It is a little different not having him going to those games,” Seten said.

And he appreciated people choosing to spend their time at Papa Del’s after Illinois games.

“To see that flow of like after the game, everybody rushing in in orange, getting their orders in, because it takes a while, he loved that,” Seten said. “If football and basketball or whatever sports went hand in hand with pizza, then he knew he was doing it right.”

And some new decorations are making their way to the restaurant to help honor his love of the orange and blue.

“We talked to the U of I, we got the signs from his parking spot and everything,” Seten said. “So, I was hoping to get them put up. I’ll get them put up before tomorrow.”

Seten said she’s looking forward to serving deep dish to Illini fans this weekend, and that it would help if the team walked away with a win.