Former Le Colonial Site to Get New Chance With Restaurant
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by Deborah Belgum
Can Michael Kang pump life into the location once occupied by the hip Le Colonial French-Vietnamese restaurant and lounge in West Hollywood?
He thinks so. For the past 17 years, the chef has operated Five Feet, an Orange County restaurant that melds Chinese cuisine with French flavors. After thinking about venturing into L.A. for several years, Kang and his partner, Executive Chef Eric Nguyen, are about to make the leap. A Five Feet restaurant will open Jan. 16 at 8783 Beverly Blvd., occupied by popular restaurant/bar Le Colonial until last spring.
“The L.A. market to me has always been kind of risky,” said Kang.
Then Le Colonial’s Jean Denoyer, who shuttered the restaurant in June after neighbors complained about noise, approached Kang and Nguyen about forming a partnership to revive it. The deal was ready to be formalized when the Sept. 11 attacks hit.
Denoyer then decided to forego the L.A. project to concentrate on opening a restaurant in Greenwich, Conn. already underway.
Kang and Nguyen assumed the nine-year balance on Denoyer’s lease for their own eatery. The pair is making some cosmetic changes, adding a “South Seas modern design with a touch of Italian grotto fantasy.” The remodel and the lease purchase price adds up to $1.2 million, Kang said.
Like the Laguna Beach location, the restaurant will have rotating exhibitions of artists’ works.
Sweet Success
In another restaurant move, Marmalade Caf & #233;, which is on a mini-expansion plan, has opened a 200-seat restaurant in Rolling Hills Estates on the Palos Verdes Peninsula.
The new restaurant is located at The Avenue of the Peninsula shopping center, a struggling mall until TrizecHahn Corp. sold it to Cousins Properties of Atlanta three years ago. The new owner removed the shopping center’s roof and turned the place into an open-air property with new shops such as Restoration Hardware, Tommy Hilfiger, The Gap and a soon-to-arrive Borders, Books and Music store. The mall is anchored by a Saks Fifth Avenue.
Berbere Imports
After 20 years at the same location, Berbere Imports closed its store at 144 S. Robertson Blvd. to consolidate its inventory of imported furniture, rugs, ceramic pots and accessories to its warehouse store on La Cienega Boulevard.
Owner Suad Cano opened the warehouse store, at 3049 S. La Cienega Blvd., five years ago to better cater to furniture retailers and interior designers.
She shops for all her imports, which come from Asia and the Middle East, herself. While the Iraqi native won’t be visiting the Middle East soon, she is taking a trip in February to the Philippines to find new merchandise.
Slowing Down
Wild Oats Market, which has been slowly expanding in the Southern California region with four whole foods supermarkets on the Westside and another in Pasadena, had been poised to launch a new store in Long Beach.
While consumers saw the Wild Oats sign go up several months ago at the new Marina Shores shopping center built by Selleck Development Group, no grocery store materialized.
It seems that the relatively new chief executive, Perry Odak, is doing some corporate reorganizing and strategizing and now doesn’t plan to open a store until at least March.
Staff reporter Deborah Belgum can be reached at (323) 549-5225 ext. 228 or at
[email protected]
