Dog n Suds, established in 1953, originated in Champaign, Illinois and then grew into a franchise throughout the 1950’s and 60’s. They established a location in Grayslake, Illinois in 1964. Since then the drive-in has been under five ownerships and grew to be an icon of downtown Grayslake.
The current owner of Dog n Suds in Grayslake is Jason Axelrod. He was a long time customer who purchased the drive-in when it went up for sale. He said nostalgia is a very important part of the drive-in’s relationship with the community saying, “it’s very supportive because we have this historic downtown, and this drive-in is historic, it’s been here since 1964. And so all the ownerships over the years have tried to keep that nostalgia, and it’s very unique from the outside.” Axelrod also commented on the effect of the food trucks. He said “the food trucks allowed us to expand outside of Grayslake, but then bring those people to Grayslake. So it’s been a nice addition because it’s an expansion, it’s an extension of the drive-in. We can bring our core products to other customers outside of Grayslake, and the whole point is to bring them back to the drive-in where they get the full menu.”
Despite Dog n Suds successful history, every business has their lows. In April of 2024, Dog n Suds went through something no business ever wants to go through – the drive-in caught on fire and it was devastating. According to the Lake and McHenry County Scanner, the fire caused $120,000 dollars in damage. The entire drive-in had to be remodeled. Axelrod said “The problem that arose from the fire was this building, because it’s been here so many years. There were so many code upgrades that had to be done after the fire in order to re-open. So, what had happened was the insurance policy was exhausted and was not able to cover all of the fire costs because of the amount of upgrades we did. We had to get the building up to code and there were a lot of codes in relation to village ordinances, but also safety as far as the electric, the plumbing, the fire kitchen system, and some other things had come up during that process.”
Most places wouldn’t recover from this type of disaster, but this is when Dog n Suds saw how much Grayslake valued them. Despite the competitive nature of local restaurants, multiple other restaurants, businesses, and stores held fundraisers, stored products, and even donated sales to help Dog n Suds get back on their feet. Axelrod said, “the businesses were already supportive and the community was supportive assisting with, you know, fundraising aspects and purchased merchandise help[ed] raise funds as well.”
Now, Dog n Suds is looking forward to the future. Obviously a fire is not the way they would want to renovate, but the drive in is now up to date. “The nice thing is over the last couple years, we’ve had to fix and replace a lot of the pieces of equipment. Now with everything new, we won’t have to do that. So hopefully we can reinvest the savings back into the business and keep it growing,” Axelrod said.
