Fire destroys Edgewater restaurant days before grand opening
CHICAGO — For the past two years, co-owners John and Tanya Nguyen have been working on the future hub of their food truck and restaurant – the Chicago Lunchbox in Edgewater.
As seen on WGN-TV’s Spotlight Chicago, the popular eatery was the first Asian-inspired food truck licensed in Chicago in 2013. While the food truck has been in operation for 10 years, a Loop-area restaurant followed. The restaurant in Edgewater was the next step. Just days away from opening its new home, however, disaster struck.
“I’m disappointed and sad,” John Nguyen told WGN News. “I know things can be rebuilt. My time that I put into this place, I can’t buy that back. A lot of time went into this.”
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The couple said the property was scheduled for inspection on Thursday. To ensure the inspection was successful, John Nguyen stopped at the shop on Wednesday evening.
“I opened the back door and a cloud of black smoke hit me in the face,” he said. “I saw a little bit of a glow after I opened the door and realized it was not going to be safe for me to go in and I immediately called 911.”
The hard work and dreams of the Nguyens were suddenly ruined.
“I have this big gaping hole in my ceiling now,” John Nguyen said. “It’s a skylight but that’s not supposed to be there. Pretty much near the walk in cooler is the majority of the damage on up to the ceiling. The whole place is smoked out.”
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Officials deemed the fire to be accidental. Moving forward, the owners say they will assess the situation and take things one day at a time.
“People have been anticipating the grand opening, so I would say, please be patient,” Tanya Nguyen said. “It will happen. We are going to make it bigger and better than we ever planned, so we’ll get there.”
The owners also thanked the community, friends, and family for their support.
“We’ll get back up,” John Nguyen said. “Yeah, we’ll get back up.”
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In the meantime, the couple will continue to operate their food truck in Pilsen.
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