Angie's Pancake House: 'It Was The Best Thing I Ever Done'

JOLIET, IL — It's been nearly two full months since Loco's Mexican Restaurant owner Mario De La Torre did something nobody else in Joliet's restaurants is doing. He opened a completely separate restaurant, called Angie's Pancake House, inside his restaurant building on Essington Road.

On May 10, De La Torre began operating Angie's Pancake House at 1119 Essington Road from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. After 3 p.m., his restaurant building becomes Loco's Mexican Restaurant.

On Friday, Joliet Patch's editor met with De La Torre to find out how his off-the-wall idea of operating two completely different restaurants within the same building is doing.

"It was the best thing I ever done," De La Torre said Friday. "I'm very happy with what I did because I'm getting more clientele. I've got people coming two to three times a week now once Angie's opened. It's working perfectly."

De La Torre said he has 45 years in the restaurant industry, and at least half of that time he spent as a chef at various American restaurants, so he knows a thing or two about American cuisine.

The Angie's Pancake House menu is massive, and it includes 18 different omelettes. There are 12 different half-pound charbroiled handmade burgers such as one with blue cheese, a Joliet burger topped with Swiss cheese, mushrooms, grilled onions and house sauce, a Texas burger, a cowboy burger, a peanut butter burger, a breakfast burger and an Angie's burger topped with cheddar cheese, guacamole, sour cream and jalapenos.

The timing of the Joliet Patch interview could not be better because the Joliet area restaurant industry is now in a time of transition.

Just last week, Jeff Reid closed his Jerrie's Dogs & More about a block up the road from Angie's Pancake House and Loco's.

The week before, Joliet Patch broke the news that the IHOP restaurant on Larkin Avenue abruptly went out of business at the North Ridge Plaza near Theodore Street.

Joliet Patch has also reported that another notable restaurant on Larkin Avenue, the Big Apple Pancake House, has an uncertain future because its owners are retiring, and they are trying to sell their restaurant property for nearly $2.2 million, finding no takers so far.

The owner of Angie's Pancake House said he expects to attract many of the customers who frequented the IHOP, Jerrie's as well as the Big Apple.

Around 11 a.m. Friday, Joliet Patch noticed all the booths were taken inside Angie's Pancake House. Angie's had one table of seven customers, another table of two older men eating breakfast together and another table of two consisting of a father and his young son.

De La Torre said business has been very good so far for Angie's Pancake House.

The key, he said, has been building a loyal and regular customer base. Many of the customers are people who never ate at Loco's, he said.

Angie's Pancake House focuses on American food. It's American style breakfast and American style lunch.

De La Torre said that Mexican breakfast is not that popular around Joliet. He also said that people around Joliet generally don't go out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant more than once every three or four weeks.

He also said that while people in the Joliet area may like Chinese food, very few Joliet residents are eating Chinese food at a restaurant three times a week.

"I'm not going to order Chinese three times a week," he said.

On the other hand, people will often meet up for American breakfast or American lunch two to three times a week, he said.

And that's why he did something off-the-wall and innovative for Joliet: he opened Angie's Pancake House inside his Loco's Mexican Restaurant even though the two restaurants and two menus have nothing in common.

"I would definitely do it in a heartbeat again," De La Torre told Joliet Patch Friday. "I've got my day crew and night crew and enough employees."

De La Torre wanted people to know that his Angie's Pancake House is currently offering a grand opening special for the next several days: for $6 you get any kind of half-pound charbroiled burger, steak-cut fries and homemade soup: dine-in or carryout, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday.

"I want people to come in and try it," De La Torre said. "People that are coming for breakfast didn't know about Loco's, and every customer I have for Loco's now comes for breakfast."

Meanwhile, the drink specials that Loco's is known for after eight years in business on Essington Road have not gone away.

De La Torre said that Loco's offers $5 Bloody Marys and mimosas every day and half-price margaritas on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

As for Angie's Pancake House, De La Torre said that the pancakes and the biscuits and gravy have been among his most popular items.

"I know what's going to work," he added.

And by this time next summer, De La Torre predicted he will open another double-restaurant concept somewhere in the Joliet area. He has not determined whether it will be in the city of Joliet or perhaps one of the neighborhood communities such as Crest Hill, Plainfield or Romeoville.

"I'm thinking of opening another one," he said.

Knowing that there are hundreds of small, family-owned Joliet bars and restaurants in existence, Patch asked De La Torre why he's operating two different restaurants out of the same building and nobody else has latched on to the concept locally?

"They never think about it," he said. "I guarantee, more people will be doing it."