The Hideout of Schaumburg aims to expand menu with move to vacant restaurant next door

The Hideout of Schaumburg bar and restaurant got the green light from village trustees Tuesday to begin a new chapter of its history in the long-vacant restaurant building next to the Valley Lake Shopping Center it and its predecessors have occupied for about four decades.

Jennifer Strang, who's operated the business at 1230 Valley Lake Drive as The Hideout for the past eight years, said the move will add about 50% more space than she has now, which will have a significant impact on the menu.

“I'm excited that we're going to have a much bigger kitchen,” Strang said. “I've been looking at this building for a while.”

Having learned restaurant management at Harper College, Strang said she's long hoped to more strongly emphasize the food side of The Hideout.

Before she took over the business in Unit D of the shopping center, it was known as The Sponge Reef. Earlier names included Uncle Vern's and then Dawn's Pub.

The 1,926-square-foot building she's moving to at 1220 Valley Lake Drive began as the Asian cuisine restaurant Smiling Buddha in 1976 and expanded in 1981, but it has been vacant for more than a decade.

A restaurant called Lao Sze Chuan proposed to open there in both 2013 and 2018 but didn't move forward on either occasion.

Strang's plan includes not only an extensive cleanup of the abandoned building, but also a rearrangement of its floor plan and the entrance. She hopes to do this within a couple of months and be operating there before the end of the summer. She also intends to open within a week of shutting down the current site.

The new location will include an actual stage for the bar's karaoke performers.

The Hideout is the only current tenant of the Valley Lake Shopping Center. Strang said the future of the shopping center after she moves out is unclear to her, but she knows her business will have the parking it needs no matter what happens to the property next door.