Well, it was quite a birthday. I didn't see any of my family, but it was still one of those days that just gets better as it goes along.
On Wednesday, I was driving up 31 toward the Daily Herald. As I turned right toward the service road, in the grass, I saw a sign for Bennigan's. It said "Yes, We're Still Open." I thought that was weird, but I continued on my way. The next morning, I opened the Daily Herald. On the front page, was an article about restaurants struggling to stay open amidst the economy's collapse. On the second page of the article was a picture of that sign. Turns out Bennigan's has closed restaurants in St. Charles and Batavia, but that one in Elgin is still open. And that's just the local picture. Bennigan's closed all of its corporate-owned locations nationwide after filing for bankruptcy. That amounts to 160 locations, and about 10,000 employees are out of work. Managers said the mass shutdown went into effect at midnight Monday night, and there was no warning. Just came out of the blue. That brings memories for me.
I remember when Bennigan's was the coolest place to go. When I was a kid, they had the best chicken fingers and fajitas. And they make a really good burger, except they have to cook it medium well so there is absolutely no juice. That I'm not cool with. What is with the fear of food poisoning in this country? Anyway, I'll off the tangent. But in my mind, it is still much better than a lot of similar restaurants like Applebee's, Houlihan's, Chili's, and Friday's. So it's a shame they had to cut back so drastically and so suddenly. Hopefully, Bennigan's will make a comeback one day.
No comments:
Post a Comment