It’s official - Jake’s is coming to Aledo

After a number of fits and starts, the long-rumored addition of Jake’s Burgers and Beer has made it official that they plan to open in Aledo.

Owned by partners Bob Gregg and Courtney Lindley, Jakes’s has been in business since 1985, and Aledo will join Jake’s other eight locations in Addison, Flower Mound, Frisco, Grand Prairie,Grapevine, Lake Highlands, Mansfield, and Sundance Square.

In addition, the partners have just opened five new sports-bar concept restaurants, Jake’s Game Day, in the Dallas area.

Gregg stressed that Jake’s is a family business, and family played a role in their decision to locate in Aledo. Gregg’s sister and brother-in-law live in the community.

“We we have loved the community in Aledo for a long time, genuinely,” Gregg said. “We just see it as such a developing community that on the restaurant side could could deal with some more options to service the community. We've been trying to find the right location and opportunity out there actually for quite some time.”

The location will be the old Lasater building on FM 1187 just north of First Financial Bank, and the location offers some amenities that have Gregg and Lindley excited.

“There is a big area out behind the restaurant that we can activate in a lot of different ways,” Gregg said.

The restaurant will have a covered patio in the main restaurant area, but there is a large area behind the building the partners have big plans for.

“We're creating an almost campground-type environment with firepits, some synthetic turf that is an area that kids can use to run around and play. We're going to put a stage out there where we can do some live music — even outdoor televisions in our mind,” Gregg said. “When we think of football season in Aledo, if the if the team is playing on the road, we'd love to be able to play the games in this backyard area and have a place where the community can congregate.”

Gregg said the restaurant will be able to do some outdoor cooking, and they’re having a custom black-and-orange trailer made called "The Bearcat."

“At The Bearcat we're gonna do all sorts of different things — we'll be able to fry outside, have a flattop, have an open-flame grill, we can do some fajitas from time to time, we can do a crawfish boil, we can do burgers and brats and dogs outside on the lawn and in the campground that will complement the restaurant experience and create another experience all together just for family and people in the community that that want a place to hang out,” Gregg said.

Jake’s has also made recent improvements to the menu at their other locations, and that same menu will be served in Aledo.

“We've done a lot of work in our menu the last couple of years to really improve the quality and freshness of everything,” Gregg said. “The hero of our brand has always been the burger. And the Jake's burger has been amazing for many years. But not every aspect of the menu met the quality of the burger. And so we've worked hard to increase the quality throughout the menu and also add some more options like really good salads and sandwiches to round out the experience.”

Of course, the magic question on everyone’s mind is when they can order a hamburger at Jake’s in Aledo, and Gregg anticipates opening in early August now that all the construction surprises are out of the way.

“When you have an existing, older building that was built originally for different uses, you don't find out certain challenges until you dig in and start doing the work,” Gregg said. “So when when we saw cut all the concrete in order to lay in plumbing, and then you have a void underneath the building, you have to go back in and do some dirt work and some compaction and resolve that.”

In addition, it turned out that the water line servicing the location was not large enough for commercial restaurant use, so it had to be dug up and replaced, and power lines had to be moved to make way for the patio and deck.

Now that all of those issues are ironed and contracts have been signed, Gregg is looking forward to serving Aledo.

“We're really excited about this opportunity,” Gregg said. “It's a way to take what we think is a really good family brand, where we're we're focused on creating fresh, high-quality foods options, friendly, and create a place that is really something for everyone,, whether there's something on the menu that you can find that you love, or a way to use us from an experience standpoint, either inside the restaurant, on the patio, or in the backyard or the campground area. We want to create an experience that that fills everyone's needs.”