The Burger King located on Kennedy Drive in Bradley has permanently closed as of February 24, 2025.

A notice posted on the restaurant’s door informed customers of the closure, thanking them for their support over the years. The sign also directed patrons to nearby Burger King locations in Bourbonnais and Kankakee. Photos of the now-closed restaurant show an empty drive-thru and a dumpster outside the building.

Social media reactions included speculation about a possible new tenant, with one commenter joking that Portillo’s had purchased the property. However, no official announcement has been made regarding the building’s future.

Hamburgers have always been the backbone of the fast-food and fast-casual industries.

When Burger King and McDonald’s first launched their menus, they basically offered a choice of hamburger or cheeseburger along with fries and a soda. That has, of course, changed a lot, but burgers are still core products.
Burgers sit at the heart of the menu for numerous chains, including ones like Five Guys, which has an old-school fast-food menu. Shake Shack has a slightly broader menu, but again, burgers are its core product.

The same can be said of fast-casual and casual sit-down chains. Chili’s has based its recent advertising on pointing out that its new Smashburger has more meat than a Big Mac, and every player in the space has pushed its burger as a good value.

That’s created incredible competition and means that a chain that has built its business model around hamburgers better have a damn good product.

One popular burger-based casual-sitdown chain says it has good burgers, but it’s closing dozens of locations amid growing losses.