(Updated 9:30 a.m., June 25)
Little Turkish Village set to reopen three months after strip mall fire
By Fred Sherwin
Orléans Online

Fans of the Little Turkish Village Restaurant on St. Joseph Blvd. will be happy to here that the establishment will reopen on June 26, nearly three months after a fire in the strip mall forced it to close its doors on March 31.

Owner Sunil Kurichh says the last three months have been an extremely trying time for himself and his family who depend on the restaurant for their livelihoods, not to mention the staff.

Little Turkish Village owner Sunil Kurichh can hardly wait to welcome customers back to his St. Joseph Blvd. restaurant on June 6. The eatery has undergone extensive renovations since a fire forced all the businesses in the strip mall to close on March 31. Fred Sherwin/Photo

But out of tragedy often comes renewal and that couldn’t be more true than for the Little Turkish Village Restaurant which has undergone a complete makeover since the fire. The decor has been completely redone, save for the large mural of Istanbul and the bridge over the Bosphorus Straits which joins the two halves of the city together.

“I think our customers are going to be very pleased,” says Kurichh. “Everything has been redone except for the menu. The menu is still the same as it was before the fire. The only difference is that the food will be cooked with new equipment.”

The restaurant was forced to close on March 31, along with the rest of the businesses in the strip mall, when a chemical fire in George & Sons Upholstery caused extensive smoke damage.

In the days and weeks that immediately followed the fire, Kurichh spent hours on the phone with his insurance company.

“It's been hell. A lot of headaches,” says Kurichh. “We have our insurance company and the mall owner has his own insurance company. It took awhile but we’ve started to receive some compensation."

Kurichh has been especially touched by the support of his customers during the ordeal of the past three months. They have called, e-mailed and even dropped by to see how things are going. Many of them have already made reservations for the reopening.

“They are anxious to see the new place and support us,” says Kuricch. “They’re anxious to eat and we’re anxious to serve them.”

(This story was made possible thanks to the generous support of our local business partners.)

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