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Phat Phat Chinese Eatery opens in restored Schaumburg building

The long-awaited Phat Phat Chinese Eatery has opened its doors in the restored century-old building that last housed the Easy Street Pub in Schaumburg's historic district.

In addition to bringing Schaumburg a new restaurant under the same ownership as the popular Imperial Lamian in Chicago's River North neighborhood, the building itself was deemed architecturally significant enough for the village to reimburse its landlords $250,000 of the renovation cost.

Schaumburg Economic Development Director Matt Frank said the village made the offer because the building at 17 S. Roselle Road is a contributing structure to the Olde Schaumburg Centre district around it, as well as the only commercial building that remains from the period. Several others, include Lou Malnati's next door, are converted houses or barns.

Village officials committed $150,000 to the investment partnership EZDUZIT 17 LLC upon completion of the building work and another $100,000 if the tenant was to their liking. A restaurant was considered the best use of the site.

The building opened as Charlie Krueger's Inn and Boarding House, which served the workers who first paved Schaumburg Road in the 1910s. It later became Lengel's Tavern, which operated for 45 years before being gutted by a fire in 1976.

Jerry Trofholz bought the building from Johanna Lengel in 1978 and turned it into the Easy Street Pub. It remained so until his family closed it in May 2017, a year and a half after his death.

The current owners bought the building for $500,000 with the intention of investing $721,000 into its restoration.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new restaurant originally scheduled for Tuesday has been postponed to a still undetermined date.

Officials from Imperial Group, the Indonesia-based parent company of both Phat Phat and Imperial Lamian, could not be reached for comment Monday.

Chinese restaurant to replace former Easy Street Pub in Schaumburg

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