It’s not often you see a business operating under two names from a single building, but that appears to be the case with the Chinese Combo King restaurant on West Chimes Street, where a banner sign for “Little Saigon II” has appeared just below the permanent sign for the Chinese restaurant. And the building’s owner says it’s possible both signs will remain for the foreseeable future.
“Basically they want to promote the addition of Vietnamese food to the Chinese Combo King menu, so we are allowing them to put a banner up,” says James Hall of Cole, Cole & Hall Properties in Lafayette. “As long as they maintain their obligations to the lease, they’ll be able to keep it up, but one of the terms is that the Chinese Combo King sign stays there.”
The confusion surrounding the LSU-area restaurant began in January, when the restaurant briefly closed and its owners told The Daily Reveille the building had been sold to the owners of the Little Saigon restaurant on Florida Boulevard. The new owners planned to rename the restaurant Little Saigon II.
But Hall says the building was never sold and the Chinese Combo King owners, Alice and Morris Lo, were never in a position to transfer their lease to Little Saigon owners Lan and Vu Nguyen.
“We don’t allow subletting,” Hall says, adding the Los are bound to the lease on the building at 166 W. Chimes St. through March 2017.
Instead of a lease transfer, Hall says the Los have reached an agreement with the Nguyens to take over management of the restaurant. Under that agreement, it could be possible the restaurant carries two names going forward.
“I haven’t seen the banner yet,” says Hall, who was reached this morning in Lafayette, “but the Chinese Combo King sign will be up there until the lease is up in 2017, unless the lease is broken before then … and the banner is fine as long as it’s not in violation of our terms.”
The Nguyens could not be reached for comment as of this morning’s deadline.
—Steve Sanoski
