Poll: Tell us your favorite southwestern Illinois restaurant, café to open this year
By now you may have seen my recent recap of new restaurants (and cafés, bars, bakeries, etc.) I covered this year.
More importantly, I hope you’ve been able to sample some of them.
To keep public interest in these fine establishments alive and well, I’d like to introduce a new poll: Favorite New Southern IL Restaurant of 2023 … So Far.”
Not the snazziest title, but it’s pretty straightforward.
I divided the businesses into two categories to make voting a tad easier. And I dropped the national fast-food places.
First you’ll choose your fave among the restaurants and other places that serve food, appetizers as well as full meals.
The second group consists of cafés, bakeries and other place one can find desserts and other tasty treats.
A couple of the places in this poll – Clara B’s, Marco’s Express – aren’t exactly new but reopened in new locations. So yeah, I think those count as new restaurants.
And I admit that I hesitated including Down Home Cookin in the poll because it was closed for the transition to Steel Town Burgers.
But it is set to reopen Wednesday, Aug. 2, and will have some new and some familiar menu items.
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Keep in mind these polls are just for fun.
So have fun with it. Make your picks. If you can’t decide, go through and vote for one. Then refresh the page and vote for another. Heck, vote for the same one. Vote as many times as you want.
Before you can see the first set of restaurants, answer “yes” in the validation form. (We want to be sure you’re not a bot.)
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Share your thoughts about the poll – or any of the places listed – with us at newsroom@bnd.com.
Results will be shared in a follow-up column after voting ends at 11:59 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 13. But be sure to look for updates until then.
For now, happy voting … and happy eating!
