Raising Cane’s ready to join Joliet food fest

Another shift in the Joliet restaurant landscape comes in March when Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers opens.

Raising Cane’s, the restaurant chain of 550-plus locations that prides itself in specializing in chicken fingers, has announced it will open in Joliet on March 8.

The city in the past year has seen restaurants come and go – many at the same locations.

Raising Cane’s has risen at 3000 Plainfield Road on the site of the former Diamand’s, a longtime family restaurant that did not make it through the COVID-19 pandemic. Government mandated shutdowns along with a reluctance, especially among older customers, to go out to eat took a heavy toll on sit-down restaurants while it opened new opportunities for many restaurants that specialized in carry-out service.

The turbulent business climate for restaurant operators led to the creation in October of the Joliet Region Food and Beverage Association, a group of restaurant owners and operators who came together to learn more about trends in their business and share best practices.

“The restaurant business in itself is always a struggle,” said Tom Grotovsky, owner of the The Great American Bagel on Essington Road and a board member of the Food and Beverage Association. “We’ve been lucky at the Great American Bagel because we do a lot of carryout. I can seat 32 people, and we’re usually pretty full in there.”

Still, Grotovsky said business has shifted to more carryout and fewer dine-ins during the pandemic.

Grotovsky said restaurant owners have “banded together” to get through the last two years of shutdowns, mandated masking and social distancing restrictions.

“There seems to be a big enough group of people that they’re spreading the wealth, and it’s great for everybody,” he said. “Thank God, things are starting to change. I know it’s been tough on everybody.”

Grotovsky is counting on a pent-up demand and need for socialization to bring more people out to eat.

Meanwhile, the numbers of customers looking to take food home to eat has spurred the arrival of new restaurants in town.

Pop’s Italian Beef and Sausage opened in January on Jefferson Street after remodeling a building formerly used by Boston Market. Franchise co-owner Joe Haberkorn told The Herald-News previously that the carryout business not only had become a growing part of his business at other Pop’s locations but in some cases accounted for more business overall.

Joliet Council member Larry Hug, who heads the council’s Economic Development Committee, said the city is likely to see more restaurant development based on inquiries being fielded at city hall.

Noting not every new restaurant is a carryout specialty, Hug pointed to the future Olive Garden restaurant being developed at The Boulevard center.

But he also said long lines at the Portillo’s Pick Up as a potential sign of things to come.

The Portillo’s Pick Up opened Feb. 1 as the chain’s first restaurant devoted exclusively to carryout and delivery business with no eat-in dining. The Larkin Avenue restaurant was built on the site of a former IHOP.

Hug said the Portillo’s Pick Up may some day have a place in local history that can be compared to the opening of the first Dairy Queen in Joliet decades ago.

“Just as we can always say the first Dairy Queen was in Joliet,” he said, “we can say the first Portillo’s Pick Up was in Joliet.”