One of my first jobs as a teenager was at the Jack in the Box restaurant in Calumet City. I think I was making $1.45 per hour, which would have been the minimum wage at the time.
It was a typical kid job at the time. We made tacos and burgers (the secret sauce was Thousand Island dressing) and emptied the grease trap.
Then I moved on, but always had a soft spot for Jumbo Jacks, Bonus Jacks and Moby Jacks and the tacos. There were McDonald’s and Burger Kings all over the place, but not so many Jack in the Box restaurants.
One by one, the locations closed as the chain all but abandoned Illinois. The one I worked at has undergone many changes over the years and most recently was a Shrimp Express restaurant.
There were a couple of locations down by St. Louis and we always stopped as we were coming back from our road trips.
My daughter loves Jack in the Box. On those occasional trips to Las Vegas, she would make us stop at the first location we spotted and always made us stop on the way back to the airport when we were heading home.
Back when cars had antennas, we even picked up a Jack in the Box head that adorned the top of the antenna of my old Ford Escort. People would stop and ask us where we got it from.
So, imagine how excited she was – and me a little, too – last year when the chain announced they were coming back to the Chicago area for the first time in like four decades.
She was even more excited when she learned the first batch would be coming mostly to the south and southwest suburbs. She kept me updated on construction of the new one going up in New Lenox.
The time is almost now to relish a burger drenched in special sauce or one of those greasy tacos.
The first one to open its doors in the Chicago market did so last week in Plainfield at 2101 Illinois Route 5.
Next up was the one in Countryside, which opened Monday in the former Arby’s at 5656 S. LaGrange Road.
That one will be followed in August by New Lenox, 672 E. Lincoln Highway, Carol Stream, 441 E. Geneva Road, and Naperville, 1600 E. Ogden Ave.
September will see new locations at 7807 S. Cicero Ave. in Chicago, 9550 W. 179th St. in Tinley Park in another former Arby’s. And Lake in the Hills at 320 N. Randall Road.
Welcome back, Jack!
Will there be on coming to Bradley Ill