{"id":818557,"date":"2026-05-24T07:46:16","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T07:46:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/818557\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T07:46:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T07:46:16","slug":"mexican-chain-guzman-y-gomez-suddenly-closes-all-restaurants-in-lake-mchenry-counties-and-surrounding-area","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/818557\/","title":{"rendered":"Mexican chain Guzman y Gomez suddenly closes all restaurants in Lake, McHenry counties and surrounding area"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/guzmanygomez.jpg\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns=\" http:=\"\" height=\"499\" width=\"918\" data-lazy- data-lazy- class=\"wp-image-111548 sp-no-webp\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/guzmanygomez.jpg\"\/> <\/a>Australia-based Guzman y Gomez is exiting the Chicago area and has permanently closed all of its restaurant locations, including the one located at 5459 Northwest Highway in Crystal Lake. | Photo: Google Street View<\/p>\n<p>Guzman y Gomez, an Australian-based Mexican chain, has suddenly shut down all of its restaurants in Lake and McHenry counties as it exits the Chicago area just six years after entering the market.<\/p>\n<p>Guzman y Gomez announced Friday that all GYG USA restaurants would \u201ccease trading\u201d on May 22.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAfter six years of burritos and big dreams in Chicagoland, we\u2019ve made the difficult decision to close our US restaurants,\u201d the company said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo every guest who came through our doors \u2013 you chose us, and we never took that for granted,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n<p>The restaurant chain first came to the U.S. in 2020 with the opening of a location in Naperville.<\/p>\n<p>It later expanded and opened restaurants in Crystal Lake, Deerfield, Buffalo Grove and other areas in the Chicagoland.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo our team \u2013 thank you. Your passion and your purpose built something special. If you\u2019re ever in Australia, Singapore or Japan, come find us \u2013 we\u2019ll have your favs waiting for you,\u201d the company said.<\/p>\n<p>Guzman y Gomez is a Mexican-themed casual fast food restaurant chain based in Australia.<\/p>\n<p>It was started in 2006 in Sydney by Steven Marks, who is from New York.<\/p>\n<p>Marks told the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.afr.com\/companies\/retail\/guzman-y-gomez-calls-it-quits-on-us-as-losses-deepen-20260522-p5zzpe\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Financial Review<\/a> on Friday that the company\u2019s U.S. plan was unsuccessful due to major decisions that did not come to fruition.<\/p>\n<p>He cited \u201csnowy Chicago\u201d and focusing on drive-thrus as some of the reasons.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI could look back and say \u2013 was Chicago the right place? A drive-through strategy to initiate our entry into the market \u2013 was that the right call? There\u2019s all these little things that didn\u2019t work in our favour that the team and I would probably do differently,\u201d Marks told the newspaper.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen it snows, everybody thinks delivery should be strong. But when it snows, you can\u2019t drive,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia-based Guzman y Gomez is exiting the Chicago area and has permanently closed all of its restaurant locations,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":818558,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[6],"tags":[12320,64,960,3030,14681,336774,240754,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-818557","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-buffalo-grove","tag-business","tag-chicago","tag-crystal-lake","tag-deerfield","tag-guzman-y-gomez","tag-restaurant-closure","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116628450667208695","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818557","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=818557"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818557\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/818558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=818557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=818557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=818557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}