BD’s Mongolian Grill closure tied to downtown Naperville challenges, post-COVID biz drop, company CEO says

BD’s Mongolian Grill, a staple in downtown Naperville for nearly three decades, was closed Tuesday by its corporate owners.

A skeleton crew was on site Wednesday to box up supplies and canned and dried food to be moved from the 221 S. Washington St. business to the BD location in Bolingbrook.

The closing comes on the heels of the Barnes & Noble announcement that it would be shutting down its downtown Naperville bookstore Jan. 21 after 25 years — leaving two empty storefronts on Washington Street.

BD’s Mongolian Grill CEO Gregg Majewski, of Barrington, who oversees 144 restaurants as part of the Craveworthy Brands Restaurant group, said Wednesday the location was becoming too expensive to operate.

“We had an incredible run and were there for well over 20 years. Unfortunately, all good things come to an end,” Majewski said.

“The rents continued to go up over the course of time and leases and landlords expect to get a number agreed upon years ago. It just became too much to handle so it just didn’t make economic sense to continue.”

Majewski said the timeline to exit Naperville actually began before the pandemic.

“Before COVID we started looking at this,” he said. “We never rebounded completely after COVID to the sales we had before, and if we were able to do that, we’d be able to stay,” he said. “As I’ve said before, breaking even is not what any business wants to do, and the time and effort it takes to just break even at a restaurant when you have so many other ones, it’s just a better use of our time and resources.

“If you look at just repair and maintenance costs at the old building — that was another reason on top of my high rent and everything else. When (we) came to an agreement (with the landlord that) we could part ways, we jumped on it.”

About 30 people were employed at the Naperville location and have been offered jobs elsewhere in the company.

One of them is the general manager Kirsten Simmons, who has worked for the restaurant chain for 11 years and at the Naperville site since 2019.

“I saw what was happening earlier but our closing wasn’t announced until a few days ago. (Majewski) was fighting up to the very end,” Simmons said.

Thanks to a message she posted on social media, many old customers were able to have a final meal Tuesday, she said.

“Our last customers have said things like they celebrated their wedding rehearsal here, and there are others who said this was where we had our first date. It’s so sad. Others say they came here as a teenager and now they are bringing their kids to eat here.”

Simmons credited a posting on social media with bringing in the restaurant’s final customers.

“I honestly don’t think we would have had anybody here Tuesday if I hadn’t posted it since it was so cold,” she said. “(Talking to people and) reading some of the things people were posting — I was crying the whole shift Tuesday.”

Simmons, who might transfer to the Bolingbrook location, said they really did their best to try to keep the restaurant going.

“I’m not saying the restaurant wasn’t doing well, but it could have been doing better and me and the previous general manager worked our butts off during the entire pandemic to build our restaurant back up,” she said.

“We got remodeled and had a menu update and this year was my first official year being the general manager. I signed us up for (Naperville) restaurant week for the first time next week and now we can’t even be in it.”

Veronica Hoeller, another crew member working Wednesday, said she left the Bolingbrook location to work in Naperville six months ago. She was a server, bartender and supervisor, she said.

“I’ve seen a lot of things come and go and I’ve seen a lot of change. It’s very sad for the people that like to come here,” she said. “Even for being as long as I was here, I did see a lot of regulars. It was fun — everyone loved to come in and do the whole experience of it.”

Laurel Flowers, of Lisle, who was visiting downtown Naperville Wednesday, and said she was sad to see both the restaurant and Barnes & Nobel go.

“Both have been here for a long, long time,” she said. “It does seem like the culture of the town is changing.”

Majewski acknowledged that being a downtown business has its challenges.

“Downtown Naperville is an incredible area; we’re very thankful for our time there,” he said. “But unfortunately with the amount of new restaurants that have gone in and the increase of costs and the lack of parking, it was hard to do the numbers that you need to do to be successful.”

David Sharos is a freelance reporter for the Naperville Sun.