Burger King On Joliet's West Side Closes Forever

JOLIET, IL — Many fast-food restaurants are thriving during the pandemic as more and more people order takeout, but one Joliet fast-food restaurant has gone out of business. This week, the Burger King restaurant on Houbolt Road, just up the street from the Joliet Junior College main campus, closed.

The address is 3625 Rock Creek Road even though it faces Houbolt Road.

"This Burger King is permanently closed as of today 12-14-2020," the sign on the drive-thru reads. "Sorry for the inconvenience. Our closest location is at 108 N. Larkin Avenue in Joliet. Jefferson and Larkin."

Joliet Patch has reached out to public relations staff with the Burger King corporation to learn more details why the Joliet restaurant near I-80 and Houbolt Road abruptly went out of business.

Patch's story on the Burger King drew tens of thousands of reads Tuesday. The number of Joliet Patch Facebook comments to the article was in the hundreds.

Here's just a tiny sampling of Joliet Patch reader reactions:

• From Stacy: "That location was horrible. I live by there and they messed up my orders countless times and the employees always had major attitudes."
• From Carlos: "Terrible service and nasty old food. Every time I ordered, food was soggy, and falling apart. And when asked to make my food fresh, they were rude and manages to still screw my order. BK is not the same anymore."
• From Brian: "Place was never busy every time I rode by there."
• From Ray: "At one time, say 1982. This was one of the finest hamburger restaurants to be found. The (sic) it takes two hands to handle the whopper was a truth. Kids got nice Burger King hats. The food was good not processed..."
• From Paula: "The only thing keeping them alive was the office buildings near there and most are still working from home.
• From Dan: "Went there once...did not like it. People had no personality ... food looked it was just thrown together."

• From Charise: "They need to close the one on Cass I saw them give a cup to homeless man in lobby and have him fill the drink up for drive thru cause it was broken."
• From Tammy: "Burger King is a dying chain, sadly."

Incidentally, the Joliet Burger King closing comes at the same time that the 24-hour downtown Evanston Burger King also went out of business.

So far in 2020, a handful of other notable restaurant chains closed in Joliet: the Bob Evans Family Restaurant on Larkin Avenue, the Boston Market on West Jefferson Street and the Arby's on West Jefferson Street. However, a number of new restaurants have opened or are in the process of opening up such as: Red Crab Juicy Seafood on West Jefferson Street and Russo's Italian Deli on Plainfield Road. Joliet's new Chick-fil-A on Plainfield Road is set to open in January and the Rosemary Cafe will open Monday at Joliet's old Sonny's Delite on Essington Road.

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