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Owner of Janko's Little Zagreb steakhouse dies in house fire

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SPENCER, Ind. (AP) - John Pouch, the owner of Janko's Little Zagreb restaurant in Bloomington, was found dead inside his rural Owen County home following a fire, friends said.

Pouch, 62, told friends Sunday that he was preparing to fix dinner and drink some wine, said Mark Conlin, the manager of the popular steakhouse.

"He said, 'See you tomorrow' before we hung up, and tomorrow never came," Conlin said.

Three hours later, Pouch was found dead just inside the doorway of his home by firefighters.

An autopsy was scheduled for Tuesday. The cause of the fire had not been determined.

The restaurant was closed Monday, but was scheduled to reopen Tuesday. "Tell people we aren't going anywhere," Conlin said.

Pouch's brother opened the restaurant in the early 1970s, Conlin said. Pouch took it over a few years later and turned it into a steakhouse.

"Their heritage is Yugoslavian, and Janko means "little John," which is what they called him," Conlin said. "At first it was a place for sports fans to come, and the steaks seemed to go over very well, and it blossomed and became an institution in Bloomington."

Janko's was a familiar place for many Indiana University athletes, said Harold Mauro, the university's director of football operations.

"He was a good man, and a good supporter of IU athletics. He'll be very much missed," Mauro said.

(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

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