FOOD NEWS
A Perfectly Preserved 1980s Burger King Hides In A Secret Mall Passage
By Brian Boone
While most closed-down restaurants might be remodeled, this defunct Burger King remained frozen in time, untouched, unseen, and hidden behind a wall for years. In 1987, Burger King opened a location in the Concord Mall in the Brandywine Hundred area of Wilmington, Delaware, decking it out in late 1980s restaurant design with turquoise tables, mauve booth cushions, and blond wood everywhere.
When it closed in 2009, the staff didn't clean out the space or remove any fixtures, and the mall put up a wall, blocking the defunct restaurant from public view and access. In 2020, the Concord Mall was sold to Namdar Realty Group, receiving access to all of the mall's areas, including the long-forgotten Burger King, which had been used as a storage space for the past decade.
In 2022, the general manager, Tom Dahlke, started taking in potential new tenants into the Burger King, and one of the mall's vendors got a peek inside the space, posting a photo of the untouched fast food restaurant, which later went viral. Reporters and news photographers were soon given tours, documenting the fast food time capsule, and as of December 2022, no new tenant has yet to move in.