September opening planned for Schaumburg Walker Bros.
A long-awaited Walker Bros., The Original Pancake House, location in Schaumburg is expected to open this September in the village's Town Square shopping center.
Schaumburg trustees Tuesday approved the breakfast-lunch restaurant's move into the former Applebee's building at 18 S. Roselle Road.
When the pancake house was first announced on the Walker Bros. website last August, a late spring 2016 opening was anticipated.
However, franchise owner Ray Walker told the Schaumburg zoning board earlier this month he is now aiming for September.
The building's revised floor plan calls for 153 customer seats inside and 32 more in a seasonal outdoor area. The restaurant's planned hours of operation are 6 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. seven days a week.
Walker told village officials he has been in business for 42 years and the restaurant chain is the continuation of one his father started in Portland, Oregon.
Existing locations in Chicago's North and Northwest suburbs lie in Arlington Heights, Glenview, Highland Park, Lake Zurich, Lincolnshire and Wilmette.
The new restaurant's approval came with a zoning variation allowing it to operate with 48 parking spaces instead of the 76 dictated under village ordinances. The exception was granted because parking is available elsewhere in Town Square, located at the southwest corner of Schaumburg and Roselle roads.
A similar parking variation was granted to the Applebee's, which opened in 2001 and closed in 2013.
The restaurant is near the vacant Dominick's that formerly anchored Town Square. Itasca-based Tony's Finer Foods bought the Dominick's building a year ago with plans to open a new grocery store by mid-2016.
But those plans are on hold indefinitely as the company tries to work out an agreement with the current lease holder, Albertson's, the parent company of Jewel-Osco.