Joe's Hot Dogs Owner: 'I'm Just Excited To Be Open'

JOLIET, IL — If you ask most long-time residents of Joliet who says, "Fries or Rings?" they'll immediately know you're talking about Joe's Hot Dogs, an iconic Joliet restaurant since 1953. At 11 a.m. Thursday, Joe's reopened at its familiar location on Plainfield Road for the first time in eight weeks.

Joe's remained closed during the new coronavirus health crisis, but not anymore to the delight of thousands of people in the Joliet area.

Don't miss updates about precautions in the Joliet area as they are announced. Sign up for Patch news alerts and newsletters.

The owners of Joe's have set up a makeshift drive-thru station at their business.

Motorists pull behind the restaurant, and an employee comes out to your vehicle to take your order. After paying for your meal, customers pull into the main parking lot to await their order.

"There's no parking and eating," Joe's owner Jill Huffstutler told Joliet Patch on Thursday.

Although Joe's is in the process of expanding the size of its Plainfield Road parking lot, the new parking lot is not completely ready.

As of Thursday, Joe's is now staying open 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.

All the food on the Joe's Hot Dogs menu remains the same. The key difference is that customers are not being allowed to enter the lobby to place their order because of the health crisis.

"We're just excited to be open," Huffstutler told Joliet Patch's editor about 10 minutes after opening.

"We miss our customers. We just waited for the pandemic to level off. We were not open for a while but now the governor (J.B. Pritzker) is starting to open up the state parks, and so we thought we've been waiting long enough" to reopen," she said.

Related:
Illinois Coronavirus Update May 7: 2,974 Deaths
Reopening Illinois: 6 Things You Should Know
11 More Coronavirus Deaths In Will County