Duke’s Drive In — Restaurant in Mokena

Giving this place 5 stars on everything. A little back-story if you will indulge me for a moment:

I live in California but grew up in Northern Illinois. We have been gone from here nearly 40 years. But every time we return for visits we make a point to snag as much pizza and Italian Beefs we can. Back in CA I really crave some of the Chicago delicacies that are hard to come by there. Well Duke’s Drive-in was a place I always wanted to try but never got around to over the years. Then I heard the restaurant lost its lease and had to close. (The former site on S. Harlem and 81st PL is now a frikkin’ PANERA, LOL!)

Imagine my relief when I read that Duke’s was back with a location down in Mokena near the 80. I had to run my SIL to Midway Airport a couple days ago and decided to divert down LaGrange Rd to try the place. Was it good? OH YEAH! I had the combo - Italian Beef and Italian Sausage together - with hot giardiniera. The roll was genuine Italian bread, toothsome and substantial in the way they only get right in Chicago. The beef? Best I ever tasted. It was everything I want in a real beef sammich. The sausage was great, too. Gravy out of this world. My only beef (LOL) was their giardiniera. I ordered hot but they either make their own or buy some kind of weak sauce, jalapeño-loaded stuff with near-zero pickling and almost no bite. I want some vinegar and some heat in giardiniera; if you are a fan of Marconi hot giardiniera then you know what I am talking about: lots of Serrano peppers, carrots, celery, and most-definitely pickled. But in this instance the ding for the topping was and is completely overlookable when contrasted with the most delicious beef I ever had. My recommendation would be to just pick up a jar of Marconi and use that. Just writing this is making me hungry. We are about to head home and right now I am thinking about running back out to Mokena to...

On 1-29 at 530pm drove 25miles to get 2 hotdogs 2 fries and a beef. The drive thru was backed up and only 2 people working, I went inside no wait to place an order the male person took my order & parang me up. I look at the receipt and he charged me for 4 hot dogs with everything. Order was totally wrong had to redo the order than waited 20 minutes for it to come out the the buns were hard and stale. I asked them to remake them which the girl did, they were the same hard as a rock I asked her to feel it she said it wasn’t like that a few minutes ago. So she makes the again now we got ice cold hotdog buns so no chance of being hard nice remedy. Now let’s talk a beef soaked in boiling water with no flavor and the bun had turned to mush. There were more people at the counter with wrong orders and soaked beefs. Dukes is not like I remember it! What a shame to have your reputation become who cares just serve it. It has become another McDonald’s, no pride, no service and no quality. What a shame that this what it...

This place is located inside of a gas station, but it’s actually not all that bad.

It’s actually really good. I got the beef n’ cheese croissant. This isn’t what you’d expect. They put nacho cheese on the beef and the portion was sort of small, but surprisingly really filling.

Better than the Portillo’s version because at least this one’s warm, but strange with the change in cheese.

The fries were flimsy and it didn’t help that I had to look at the interior of a gas station while eating. But don’t worry, there’s more good news!

The kicker is the ice cream. I got the twist cone and it’s a hidden gem. This bumped the review up one star. Highly recommend. Very creamy and the chocolate is identical to Oberweis, which is my favorite chocolate ice cream of all-time.

The sandwich was going to get two stars, but the ice cream saved the review from going under. +2 stars for the ice...