His go-to burger joint, the Old School Burgers
at 901 West Hampden Avenue, was dark, he said, with chairs stacked in
the middle of the dining room and all the art stripped from the walls.
I called the homegrown chain's second location at 3995 North Lewiston
Way to check on the wattage there, but the voicemail
greeting was full and not accepting new messages. In other words, that location had gone dark, too.
But it wasn't a
strikeout. A third outpost at 1760 South Havana Street in Aurora is still
flipping singles, doubles and triples, but when I got area manager
Craig Peterson on the phone to confirm my kid's story, he seemed
pretty rattled. "The other two locations closed last week -- they're
completely cleaned out. It's the economy, you know?" he
told me, his voice sounding defeated and trailing off. "The economy has hit us pretty hard and
the other locations weren't making enough money, so...you know?"
Yeah,
buddy, I do know. And while I also know that my kid couldn't have kept
Old School Burgers in business with his two burger runs each week, he has a proposition for Old School president Joe Cohen: He'll pony up his saved allowance -- a respectable $79 and change -- if you reopen the Hampden location.
Let's talk.