Why do restaurant chains leave Chicago area? (Aurora, Naperville: top schools, mall)

[myrc60]

Arthur Treacher's used to be in Burbank on 79th St.

[Drover]

Originally Posted by gardener34

Yeah the dayton hudson corp used the money they were making of marshall field's to start up all those targets. And they even made the marshall fields ads look like target ads. Don't blame macy's - dayton hudson ruined marshall fields. I am surprised that macy's even wanted it after what dh did to it.

Target sold Marshall Fields to May Department Stores before Federated snatched up May; and May was well on its way to re-establishing the customer service and product quality before Federated decided to drive it right back into the ground.

[chet everett]

Timeline shows that Dayton-Hudson was expanding the Marshall Field brand and store count for quite a while befor launcing Target stores in the Chicago market.

Lots of people have done so-so and horrible with Marshall Field stores, there are even some money people waiting for the Federated idiots to sell the name and/or the stores back to somebody that knows what they are doing:

Marshall Field's - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Targeting Chicago. (entry of Target Stores into Chicago, Illinois market) | Daily News Record | Find Articles at BNET.com

http://origin.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_9376070

Originally Posted by gardener34

Yeah the dayton hudson corp used the money they were making of marshall field's to start up all those targets. And they even made the marshall fields ads look like target ads. Don't blame macy's - dayton hudson ruined marshall fields. I am surprised that macy's even wanted it after what dh did to it.

Also, you can go to rockford, we call that the "land of the forgotten chains" ... can't remember how many, but there are several there that have been long gone in chicagoland. One is "ground round"!

And there is a ponderosa in wisconsin dells. Personally I miss arthur treacher's. dad used to bring home take out from there on fridays during lent. Yum! I guess I can live with long john silvers.

[irish setter girl]

For you Pondersoa lovers out there, I think the one on New York St. in Aurora is still operating. I just remember going there as a kid and eating the potato wedges with cheese sauce.

[aragx6]

I remember Ground Round used to do this thing on Tuesdays or something where kids ate for their weight. You stood on this big antique scale and your meal only cost what you weighed... Me and my brothers were skinny so my dad took us all the time LOL

[chet everett]

Ground Round reminds me just how "hectic" the restaurant environment has ALWAYS been.

Back in the 60's there used to be Howard Johnson's in Downers Grove on Ogden. I think it was just diner/counter service spot, had the 50's style Pepsi fountain machines with pastel colored discs/bubbles. Eventually they could not compete with the locals and maybe even a "Dog Hut" or something across the street. Corporate HoJo closed them and held the property. Then the HoJo did a deal to buy Ground Round, but they also aquired the Beef & Barrel chain which had a nearby incarnation on Butterfield Rd near Yorktown. The old HoJo property was then transformed into a Ground Round but didn't last long. It was closed and sat for a while until it was eventually a Bohemian place -- The Golden Duck. After that closed the place was maybe a used car lot or something, until it was razed and is now a mini-mall with $1.99 dry cleaner and a chain auto parts store.

Lots of other chains suffered similar fate, there was a Barnaby's pizza around there (or maybe Oakbrook Terrace) and a Shakey's Pizza too. Even recently Papa Johns came and went near there.

I seem to recall places like Lum's and maybe even a Sambo's outpost...

House of Pies, anyone???

I wonder what corporate thinking transformed the Walgreen's lunch counters into Wag's that sort of competed against Denny's and then finally folded those as Applebee's and Ruby Tuesday marched into the market?

[gardener34]

There is still a barnaby's pizza on golf road in schaumburg (hoffman estates?) The pizza is still good, looks exactly the same. The arthur treacher's was also on ogden in downers grove.

My gramma was a lifelong employee of the walgreen's lunch counters, she started downtown and eventually ended up at harvest house cafeteria in Yorktown mall.

I go to ponderosa for their salad bar. If you want a good steak, go elsewhere. They are very so-so and small.

Another chain took over the wag's... can't remember the name.

Also, are there any big boys around this area anymore? There used to be on in aurora.

[cobolt]

Wow...we're really talking old school here: Arthur Treachers, Ground Round, Pondarosa, all childhood memoires. Yeah...and let's not talk about Brown's Chicken. The Walgreens lunch counter. We used to get pumpkin pie and hot chocolate there in the winter while waiting for the bus to take us to our dance lessons near Lincoln Square.

I saw a Big Boys in Kentucky a few weeks ago, but it was no longer called "Bob's Big Boy." It was called Frisch's Big Boy.

[Chicago60614]

Lots of those places are just regional, I don't think it has to do with Chicago PERSONALLY.

Jack In The Box is mostly just in the southwest, and in Illinois it's only near St. Louis. It's not in any other major metros east of the Mississippi River.

Arthur Treasures is now just exclusively in the New York metro, Ohio and Penn. They had major financial troubles and pulled out of places to retool their model.

[Irishtom29]

Around Chicago the local food is so good it must be hard for chains to compete. One would hope so anyway.

I used to like the Wimpys joints down in the Loop and those $1.29 steak places down there.