ACE Drive-In: Joliet's Summer Tradition Is Back

JOLIET, IL — ACE Drive-In opens for business at 11 a.m. Monday for the first time in 2020. As thousands of people across Will County know, ACE has been an iconic part of Joliet, a summer rite of passage, since 1949. It's at 1207 Plainfield Road.

For the time being, because of the new coronavirus outbreak, ACE will not be setting up its wooden picnic benches for customers to eat under the shade trees overlooking Plainfield Road and Ingalls Avenue. If the number of cases in Illinois undergoes a sharp decline in the coming days, owner Rich Pierson is optimistic he can set up his picnic benches sometime in May.

ACE will be staying open 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday and noon to 8 p.m. Sunday.

Pierson encourages this week's customers to stay and eat their meals inside their vehicles at the large ACE parking lot along Plainfield Road.

He also has plenty of ACE root beer available by the gallon or in half-gallon jugs.

"We will still have our carhop service," Pierson said.

The only difference is that the meals will be delivered in takeout bags rather than on trays because of the ongoing health crisis.

Concerns about the new coronavirus virus as well as the recent streak of bad weather were both factors why ACE waited until April 20 to open for the season.

Last week, for instance, Joliet got hit with several inches of snow on two different days.

"We're kind of a couple weeks behind because of the weather," Pierson said. "It's still the same classic menu."

Some of the ACE favorites are: beef barbecue, burgers, hoagies and sliced beef poorboy.

Of course, no trip to ACE is complete without getting their famous homemade root beer.

Pierson and his brother Tom have owned ACE since 1983.

The Piersons want to let their Joliet-area customers to know that they can also phone in their orders ahead of time at 815-726-7741.

To check out ACE's full menu, go here.

Joliet Patch continues to write human-interest profiles on Joliet-area businesses during the ongoing health crisis. Joliet Patch has a simple online survey for local small businesses to fill out to let everyone know they are open and their current hours of operation. About 130 Joliet businesses have been added to Patch's list so far.

If you want to add your business to Joliet Patch's list of open and closed businesses, you can do so here.

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