JOLIET, IL — One of the notable features of Joliet’s new $215 million Will County Courthouse that opened in November 2020 was the addition of the Sidebar Café. The café was built on the fifth floor of the 10-story courthouse. Starting this year, Sidebar Café no longer operates. Instead, Will County government chose Jonathon Skinner, the proud military owner-chef of Blissful Bytes, to take over the courthouse restaurant.
“Treat yourself daily byte after byte where work and flavor converge,” reads Skinner’s business card for Blissful Bytes.
If you haven’t visited Blissful Bytes over the past few weeks, you’re missing out.
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Skinner has made several changes to the menu, and he’s expanding the breakfast offerings. And he’s planning to roll out even more items to his menu starting in March.
Blissful Bytes is open Monday through Friday for breakfast and lunch. Skinner said his background in the culinary arts is in desserts. He has been introducing several different flavors of his homemade cheesecakes at Blissful Bytes during February.
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The official name of the new courthouse restaurant is Blissful Bytes at Sidebar Café, he explained.
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One of the biggest changes from Sidebar Cafe to Blissful Bytes entails the grab and go wall.
Skinner wants the grab and go wall to avoid “food waste.” Most importantly, he wants Blissful Bytes to be known for its “quality food and timing of our service.”
Skinner said he realizes the hundreds of employees who work inside the Will County Courthouse only have so much time for taking a lunch break.
Therefore, it’s vital that everyone’s food is served in a timely fashion.
“We understand everyone’s lunch periods vary from 30 minutes to an hour,” he said. “Regardless of that, you have to give everyone enough time to get your food. I kept a similar menu, for the most part. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.”
Photos of the regular lunch and breakfast menus are posted at the bottom of this article.
Come March, Blissful Bytes will be unveiling its full menu, and one of the featured items will be barbeque, Skinner said. In other words, brisket, pulled pork and ribs will be available at the Will County Courthouse.
“And we’ll still have our rotating special menu, hotdogs, burgers, Italian beef, today was the Cuban sandwich,” Skinner told Joliet Patch during last week’s interview.
Last Friday’s lunch specials featured a Chicago style hot dog, a chicken alfredo pizza and a buffalo chicken wrap. There were two soups, beef barley and cream of chicken and rice.
Under his newly expanded breakfast offerings, Skinner said that Blissful Bytes has added an avocado toast.
As for his cheesecakes, Skinner said he makes those in-house.
He made 25 slices of cheesecake last Tuesday, Feb. 13, and “that first day, I had less than 10 left over,” he said. “I was not expecting such a high run with them.”
Skinner said his cheesecake slices included white chocolate raspberry, turtle, Oreo, blueberry and s’mores.
“I do about 20 different cheesecake flavors that I will be rotating,” he said.
Skinner said one of his favorite aspects of Blissful Bytes is the opportunity to be creative with his menu offerings.
“Especially with the courthouse, it’s Monday through Friday,” he explained. “That’s really hard to find in the culinary world.”
After Will County ended its contract with the previous vendor that operated Sidebar Cafe on Dec. 31, the courthouse restaurant sat empty in January.
Since February, Skinner has it up and running again. And he wants everyone to know that Blissful Bytes is open to everyone. You don’t have to be a courthouse employee to eat here.
Skinner aims to draw business from the Joliet City Hall across the street as well as the nearby Joliet Police Department, Harrah’s Casino and the Will County State’s Attorney’s Office, also across the street from the courthouse.
“We’re back open again,” Skinner stressed. “We have a bigger variety or grab and go stuff and we’re willing to listen to any suggestions, and we have a very extensive catering menu.”
Skinner said he’s hoping to have a grand opening gala March 1st and that will showcase “that barbecue menu. We’re excited to be here, and we’re excited to grow and provide the services to the employees and surrounding buildings.”
The address of the Will County Courthouse is 100 West Jefferson St., even though the courthouse is located on the east side of the Des Plaines River, not on the city’s west side.
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