The Gazebo Building's December Date Is for One Restaurant. The Rest Runs on a Later Clock.

"The pinnacle of gaudy excess." That was Craig LaBan's verdict on La Jonquille in his 2000 Inquirer review. He wrote about padded fabric panels on walls of padded fabric, plus a "Versailles-size chandelier" that he said he would hate to clean. The building at Berkley Road and Lancaster Avenue still has the gazebo facing the road. The Inquirer compared that gazebo to a kushk, a Persian pavilion. For most of the time since, the restaurants inside have been closed.

The latest news from 840 W. Lancaster Ave. sounds simple. Rich Kim, who runs the well-reviewed Salt Korean BBQ in North Wales, is aiming for late December to open a second Salt there. That date comes from the Inquirer's fall 2026 restaurant forecast, published September 9, 2026. The date covers less than it seems to, though. When Kim bought the property in 2025, the plan was a multi-restaurant complex. What's set for December is one first-floor restaurant. The upstairs, the omakase ideas and the second building on the lot all sit on later or unannounced schedules.

Three Forecasts in Thirteen Months

Kim and his partners closed on the purchase in August 2025. Their opening target has moved each time it was published.

VISTA Today repeated the late-December target in its September 12 roundup of Chester County openings. None of the coverage gives a reason for the slips. The Inquirer's wording also matters. Kim "predicts" late December, which is a forecast. Nobody has announced an opening day.

A slipping schedule is normal for a renovation this size. Main Line Media News described a two-building, 32,000-square-foot restaurant site and an extensive renovation of both buildings. The bigger change is in the right-hand column of that table.

The Concept List Got Shorter

On August 14, 2025, the Inquirer reported a much larger plan than anything in the current forecasts. Kim and his partners described:

1. Salt Korean Barbecue Steakhouse, a fine-dining Korean restaurant with tabletop cooking on one side of the first floor
2. A Korean omakase in another first-floor section, serving high-end meat that would include Japanese wagyu
3. A fast-casual Korean concept, also on the first floor, at a lower price
4. An unnamed sushi restaurant taking up the whole second floor, with its own omakase

Kim cited two Michelin-starred Korean restaurants in New York, Oiji Mi and its sibling bōm, as inspiration for the omakase. He said his version would serve only Korean dishes. Across all the restaurants, he expected to employ 70 to 80 full- and part-time staff.

By January 2026, the Inquirer's yearly forecast named two restaurants. Salt would be "a luxe Korean BBQ experience," and Yugo would be a Japanese-themed room upstairs with a carousel carrying premium sushi. The September forecast describes Salt as "a second Korean barbecue concept" and Yugo as "a carousel sushi restaurant." It doesn't mention the Korean omakase or the fast-casual counter.

That doesn't confirm either idea was dropped. No source says they were cancelled. The Korean omakase and the fast-casual counter have simply gone unmentioned in every published forecast since the August 2025 announcement.

Upstairs Waits for Downstairs

The January forecast put the order plainly. Yugo would open "after Salt is running smoothly." The September forecast puts Yugo in 2027.

So the upstairs date isn't a separate deadline. It depends on how the downstairs restaurant does. If Salt opens in late December, Yugo's opening hangs on Salt's first months. If Salt slips again, Yugo's 2027 window shifts with it.

The second building on the lot is the least defined part of the project. It used to house a spa and an aesthetician's office, and Kim has said he intends to lease it out. A January 2026 VISTA Today story repeated that Kim "plans to lease" the building. An editor's note says that story first ran earlier, so it isn't a new tenant announcement. No tenant has been named in anything published so far.

Why the Site Found a Buyer Who Wanted to Reuse It

The property had been vacant and for sale for years. Sales brochures never listed an asking price, but the Inquirer reported that the seller, Matt Vegari, was believed to want as much as $13 million. Neither side disclosed the final price. According to Paul French of Avison Young, who represented Vegari, it took more than a year to get from Kim's first walk-through to settlement.

French gave two reasons the deal went to Kim. First, Kim "was the only prospective buyer with a plan to repurpose the site rather than demolish it." Second, the parking. The lot has at least 130 spaces, and French told the Inquirer that "to get that amount of parking on the Main Line is almost impossible."

When the sale was announced, French also spoke to the curiosity from people who drive past the gazebo every day:

"Many residents on the Main Line have inquired about the status of this property due to the long vacancy of the building."

How long has it been empty? The two August 2025 stories describe it differently. Main Line Media News said the two restaurants "closed several years ago." The Inquirer gave a longer and more detailed timeline. Vegari, a neurosurgeon, opened La Jonquille and Shiraz as a passion project about 25 years earlier. The restaurants closed in 2001 after what he called a small kitchen fire and management problems. Shiraz reopened on and off starting in 2003, and the complex closed for good a few years after that. Parts of the building were later divided into offices. By that account, the dining rooms have been dark for close to two decades.

What Survives From La Jonquille and Shiraz

Kim has said only a little about the interior. "Some of the over-the-top decor will be preserved," he told the Inquirer, and then: "we're going to flip it upside down. People will be wowed." When LaBan's chandelier came up, Kim said he was not sure whether it would be part of his design.

The upstairs room is where Yugo is planned, and it has its own history. Vegari designed Shiraz as a Persian restaurant and banquet room to show off the food of his childhood in Iran. He decorated it with hand-hammered murals and hand-painted tile. No published report says whether those murals and tile will stay in a carousel sushi restaurant, and none says what will happen to the gazebo. The Inquirer put La Jonquille's six-course menu at $105, which it said comes to about $200 in today's dollars.

What the Public Record Shows So Far

Some things can be checked against public sources, and some can't yet.

• Township agendas. Several recent Tredyffrin Township agendas show no item for 840 W. Lancaster Ave. These are the Planning Commission meetings of August 20 and September 17, 2026, the September 30 special Zoning Hearing Board meeting, and the October 5 Board of Supervisors meeting.
• Building permits. The township takes building and commercial alteration applications through its Clariti portal. Its public permits page doesn't show the status of individual projects.
• Liquor license. Kim confirmed in April 2025 that he and his partners had applied for a liquor license. No published 2026 report has given an update on its status.
• The restaurant itself. Salt's website still lists only its North Wales address.

The forecasts tell a consistent story. Salt is planned for late December on the first floor at Berkley Road and Lancaster Avenue. Yugo is planned upstairs in 2027, once Salt is running smoothly. The second building has no named tenant.

When a long-vacant landmark on Lancaster Avenue starts to reopen, nearby owners reasonably ask what it means for their own street. If you live near Devon and are weighing a move, or just want a clear read on how projects like this tend to affect the blocks around them, the Houder Nunez-Strid Team would be glad to talk it through. Schedule a Confidential Market Consultation, and we'll keep an eye on 840 W. Lancaster Ave. as December gets closer.