5 Empty Fast-Food Restaurants Around Joliet

JOLIET, IL — One year ago this week, the former Arby's restaurant on West Jefferson Street reopened as Amigeaux's Sophisticated Street Food, but Joliet residents did not embrace the Tex-Mex food and New Orleans Cajun cuisine.

Amigeaux's went out of business in February. Five months later, the Amigeaux's restaurant building sits empty.

In March, the Beef Shack on West Jefferson Street closed after opening in late 2018. Four months later, the Beef Shack remains empty.

Last October, Joliet's one and only Long John Silver restaurant, a fixture on Jefferson Street for decades, stopped making fish and hush puppies.

Despite being across the street from Walmart, Menards and the new Belle Tire store, Joliet's Long John Silver remains vacant nine months later. Another restaurant chain has not taken it over.

But Joliet's fast-food restaurant failures are not limited to Jefferson Street.

The Burger King restaurant off the Houbolt Road exit for Interstate 80, near the Joliet Junior College campus, has been empty since December 2020.

This week, there is a large Candlewood Suites hotel under construction next to the empty Burger King property. Even still, nobody has repurposed the former Burger King as another fast-food restaurant, despite the land being on a busy thoroughfare in Joliet.

Over on Larkin Avenue, the Steak-N-Shake that had closed in 2019, only to reopen in February 2021, is now closed again.

What's interesting about all five fast-food restaurant closures in Joliet is that no other fast-food restaurant chain has emerged to occupy any of these locations.

There is no moratorium in Joliet on the expansion or addition of fast-food restaurants. However, the lack of interest in opening new fast-food restaurants across Joliet may be tied to several noteworthy additions in Joliet during the early part of this year.

In February, hundreds of people attended the grand opening of the nation's first Portillo's Pick Up, opening in Joliet at 1444 North Larkin Ave.

It's the first exclusive triple drive-thru restaurant in the country for Portillo's. There's no indoor dining room at the new Joliet location in the North Ridge Plaza.

Besides Portillo's Joliet's West Jefferson Street welcomed the new Pop's Italian Beef & Sausage at the former Boston Market restaurant directly across the street from the new Tony's Fresh Market supermarket, at Larkin and Jefferson, the old Kmart property.

Joliet's new Pop's opened in late January, one week before the Portillo's Pick Up opened.

After getting a Portillo's and a Pop's Italian Beef, Joliet's Plainfield Road celebrated the addition of Raising Cane's on March 8. The Raising Cane's built its new double drive-thru restaurant on the land where the former Diamand's Family Restaurant once stood.

On Thursday, Patch interviewed Brian Bessler, founder of the Joliet Area Bar and Restaurant Guide on Facebook, who is also a real estate agent with Karges Realty.

He said there may be a number of factors at play why some empty fast-food restaurants are not being redeveloped. He said that a prospective client was interested in acquiring the empty Burger King off Houbolt Road.

Bessler said he tried to explore the property in 2021, only to find out that the Burger King was not available on the real estate market, and city officials told him they were having difficulty contacting the property owner.

Franchise agreements or financial disputes can sometimes cause long-term delays in redevelopment or sale of a property, remarked Bessler, who is running for Will County Board in the Nov. 8 election in Joliet's District 7.

Of the five empty fast-food restaurants noted in the Joliet Patch article, Bessler said the Burger King off Houbolt Road is probably the most attractive.

"That's a prime opportunity for redevelopment," he said.

He said there is not any specific reason why Joliet's empty fast-food restaurants are not being reopened by other national or regional restaurant franchises.

"Unfortunately, things come and go," he said.

On a positive note, Bessler remarked that the Crusade Burger Bar in Yorkville announced this week that it is opening a second location, in Crest Hill, at the former Burger Rebellion spot.

Last year, Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steakburgers announced plans to build a new location on Weber Road in Romeoville. It is now under construction.

"I could see a Freddy's coming to Joliet," Bessler said, talking hypothetically.

"There are several emerging franchises that Joliet would be prime for."