This Restaurant Chain May Come to Darien: Official

DARIEN, IL — The Darien alderman who pushed for allowing a marijuana shop in the old Steak 'n Shake has a new idea — it could be the site of an A&W Restaurant.

A&W Restaurants is a Lexington, Kentucky-based fast-food chain with 625 locations in the United States and 340 internationally as of 2019, according to its website. The nearest franchise is in North Aurora.

At Monday's City Council meeting, Alderman Eric Gustafson said he contacted an A&W franchising executive. He said he was told the chain had a "definite interest" in coming to the area.

"Right now, they are in expansion mode," Gustafson said.

Gustafson said the executive planned to reach out to the franchisee in North Aurora, which the alderman was told is looking to expand.

"I'm supposed to be having another communication later this week with them to see the status of where they are at," Gustafson said.

He said he was told that if the North Aurora franchisee was uninterested, the company had plenty of other franchisees who are interested in expanding into the Chicago area.

A spokeswoman for A&W Restaurants said she would get more information about the idea of a location in Darien.

Gustafson said he believed Darien needed to be aggressive in getting businesses to come to town. The city's Economic Development Committee, he said, may want to get involved in going after specific companies to come into the city.

Mayor Joseph Marchese urged Gustafson to involve Dan Gombac, the city's municipal services director, who the mayor credited with bringing a number of businesses to Darien.

Marchese said he had a conversation with Shanahan's Food & Spirits in Woodridge about the possibility of coming to Darien.

"We talked about the available sites we had in Darien," the mayor said. "It's not as if we're rich in real estate, and we can have a company come in and build a new site. I agree with you that we need to be aggressive in terms of promoting ourselves. I think we do a pretty good job of that now."

In February, Gustafson pushed the idea of rezoning the old Steak 'n Shake to allow a marijuana store. The idea faced resistance, and the Planning and Zoning Commission recommended against it.