New Lenox's Cleanest Restaurants

Editor's note (Sept. 27, 2011): It's , a time to promote local eateries and find good discounted meals. But it's also important to see where your favorites rank in terms of county sanitation scores.

Every day this week, we'll re-publish an article from this series, which originally ran in August, and on Friday we'll provide some feedback we got from readers and business owners.

Original article published Aug. 10, 2011

The cleanest New Lenox restaurants are primarily chains, with a few local businesses sprinkled in, according to the county's most recent health inspections.

New Lenox Patch obtained Will County Health Department inspection reports for every restaurant within village limits through a Freedom of Information request, and some of the scores might surprise frequent visitors to area food joints.

Restaurants and other places that serve food, including grocery stores, gas stations and concession stands, are marked off points for various sanitation violations, such as storing food improperly or having dirty kitchens.

Today, we look at the restaurants with the highest sanitation scores in New Lenox. Check back Thursday, when we'll highlight the lowest-scoring restaurants, and Friday, when we'll publish the entire list.

For the purpose of making this list, we singled out businesses that are primarily restaurants. However, it should be noted that others scored just as highly, including perfect scores for Laraway Lanes, Paradise Park and two businesses that rent the kitchen of the Irish Pig BBQ: DD Pig Roast and Not Just Cakes.

High scores were also received by the Jewel Express gas station (99), the Jewel-Osco on Laraway Road (98), the 7-Eleven on Laraway (97), The Cake Box, Etc. (96), the Speedway on West Maple Street (96) and the Walker Country Estates concession stand (96).

*After initial inspections, restaurants are given a period of time to correct their demerits on a given inspection. In most cases, the initial score is improved upon because restaurants clean a shelf, throw away old food, etc.

Click on the business' names for more information or go to the Patch Places business directory.