What’s Next for the Former 12th Ave Grill Space?

Kevin Hanney plans a brunch place for the existing 12th Ave Grill space.

July 29, 2013

Martha Cheng,

Kevin Hanney is obsessing over the wall colors at the new 12th Ave Grill. It’s orange behind the bar and cream-colored everywhere else, except he’s worried that the orange is too bright and the cream more yellow than he’d like. “It doesn’t look anything like the square [paint sample],” he says. He’s hoping once the lights are installed and the furniture moved in, the colors will mute down.

Things are moving quickly: the floors and tiles go in tomorrow, the AC and hood vents and electrical will be completed by August 12, when all the big kitchen equipment rolls in: the walk-in fridge, sinks, stoves and ovens. August 26, the booths arrive. The first week of September, the custom tables come in, made to match the current tables at the existing 12th Ave Grill.

The new, for-real-this-time opening date is October 1.

And what’s happening to the old 12th Ave Grill space? For a while, it was uncertain whether Hanney could keep it; one caveat of SBA loans is that recipients can’t start additional new businesses, which might have forced Hanney to sell the old restaurant. Recently, however, the bank gave Hanney the green light to open a new concept in the old space. He’s closing it on September 14 for the 12th Ave Grill transition, and then plans on reopening it sometime in November as Luke’s Cafe, a “scratch kitchen and brunch house,” as he describes it. (“I’ve always liked the name ‘Luke’ for a boy,” Hanney says. It’s also, coincidentally, his wife’s maiden name.)

The idea of opening two (sort of) new restaurants around the same time makes Hanney “a little nervous,” but at the moment, it’s the colors that are really bothering him. “Colors are the one part that really stresses me out,” he says.

“I want to just get back to what I do, which is running restaurants, not running construction sites.”

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