Fans of Chai’s Noodle Bar and Bistro may soon have to venture outside of Erwin Terrace to get their favorite noodle dishes.
Chai’s will likely be relocating to a new space in the very near future, restaurant manager Jeff Javier said. Though the terms outlining the restaurant’s lease completion were established Saturday, Javier said specific plans for a departure date and new location have not yet been arranged.
The move is the outcome of a five-month negotiation process with the restaurant’s property owners, Erwin Terrace LLC, regarding the restaurant’s lease in Erwin Terrace. Discussions surrounding lease renewals began in November, said Chai’s owner Jimmy Chhay. After conflicts regarding the length of the lease—Erwin Terrace LLC was negotiating for a five-year contract while Chai’s requested a shorter one—Chhay said the management group informed the restaurant in January that they had signed with a different restaurant that was willing to commit to a longer lease.
Despite the terms outlined by Erwin Terrace LLC Saturday, Chhay said the restaurant does not plan on proceeding with relocation until forced to do so.
“We’ve been going back and forth with the landlord and the management here and we’ve made it clear to them that we don’t want to move anywhere,” he said. “We’re waiting for the landlord to make the next move and then we’re going to challenge it... it’s a whole legal process.”
Erwin Terrace LLC Manager Luke Everett said despite the difficulty in agreeing on negotiation outlines, the procedure did not begin differently than most lease-renewal discussions. Landlords benefit from longer leases, Everett explained, which was why the group had originally proposed a five-year plan.
“[A long-term lease] gives the landlord a lot more stability and confidence,” Everett said. “There’s nothing worse than having an empty store front, and a longer lease guarantees that that won’t happen that much.”
Everett said Erwin Terrace LLC generally chooses tenants based on their offered rent prices, financial stability, lease length and their synchronicity with the other property tenants, adding that, for the newly selected restaurant, the process had been no different. He said, however, that “all things being equal, we always favor an existing tenant.”
Though Javier and Chhay both suggested that the business replacing Chai’s would be an “Indian restaurant,” Everett declined to comment on specifically who would fill the space.
Javier said Chai’s is looking to stay relatively close to its current location, as students make up the restaurant’s largest customer base. He added that the bistro still plans on delivering to students through the Merchants on Points program once a new venue is established.
“We’re looking at Ninth Street, Erwin Square—just pretty much a new home somewhere close to the University and [Duke] Hospital,” Javier said.
Chai’s has been located in Erwin Terrace for six years. It is one of 12 commercial tenants in the location, along with various office spaces. Everett said there have only been three previous property turnovers since the company took ownership of the space.
“We’ve always been fans of the restaurant and we at all times really wanted Chai’s to stay where it is—that was our intent when we went into this,” Everett said. “We definitely wish that it had worked out with Chai’s, but we couldn’t come to an agreement.”
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