LOGAN SQUARE: a place to eat and a bar with a rotating menu and chefs arriving in downtown Logan Square.
LeQoinne Rice, one of the Now-Closed Rhyme or Reason Bars in Wicker Park, opens a “hybrid” dining spot and bar, called The Duplex, at the former Merchant store at 3137 W. Logan Blvd. Rice awaits an elegant opening on May 21 and a grand opening in mid-June.
At the Duplex, concepts, i. e. the menu and chefs, will rotate every six months: first, Kluckerz fried bird sandwiches and Southern California and northern Mexican lime and rábano cuisine, concepts created through Rice and the chefs he worked with. Rice plans to collaborate with another group of chefs on dim sum menus and Caribbean dishes early next year.
Rice said the purpose of giving looming chefs a head to start in the food venue industry.
“Our purpose is . . . collaborate with other chefs who don’t have the equity or finance to create their own restaurant,” he said. “The Duplex owns. I call it a hybrid. You have your fundamental menu, yet. rotated the elements. “
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The Duplex is Rice’s first solo project, with 20 years of delight in managing and managing places to eat and bars in the Chicago area. Have fun with Clutch Bar in River North.
The Duplex was born from the closure of the clutch bar due to the pandemic. Rice and other chefs have introduced a couple of takeaway and delivery concepts: Lime and Radish and The Kluckerz. place to serve as the basis of the house.
“Our purpose 80 orders consistent with the week. . . . We started making between two hundred and 240 orders according to the week. The concept that if I can locate an area where I can host any of the brands instead of Cloud Kitchen or anywhere my entire cash is taken away, I can create mine here,” he said.
Rice said he was excited to spend it alone with a place to eat and a bar that would help chefs who in a different way would have struggled to get into the industry. unattended inmate workers fairly.
All of this is a reaction to the coronavirus pandemic, which has triggered one in the food industry, Rice said.
“What I’ve learned in the industry: as a waiter, you’re going to leave with $600 and the guy who worked twice as hard as you, twice as many hours, did a quarter of what you did. So we took 3. 5 percent of our sales and invested them in the back of the house,” he said.
The Duplex replaces the American Merchant, which closed the pandemic. Prior to Merchant, the site housed Dunlay’s brunch on the Square.
Rice has been operating in the city for a decade and is from Waukegan. Kendall College of Culinary Arts graduate said he chose Logan Square’s assets because of its proximity to several critically acclaimed restaurants, such as Daisies and Lula Cafe.
“There are so many businesses in this domain, and we just need to be a component of it,” he said.
To open updates, The Duplex on Instagram.
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