Crystal Lake's Plum Garden restaurant closes

One of Crystal Lake’s newest restaurants has closed.

Plum Garden Crystal Lake, 446 W. Virginia St., closed over the weekend.

“For whatever reason, it wasn’t for lack of effort, the business just didn’t work out,” owner Jason Moy said. “With any small business, we have numbers that we have to hit, and unfortunately we just weren’t able to hit those numbers consistently. As much as we loved being part of the Crystal Lake community, it just wasn’t viable.”

He said his family “used up most of our resources just to open the place, and over time it just seemed like it wouldn’t turn around as fast as we hoped.”

The restaurant opened in May and offered Chinese cuisine and sushi. It featured a bar, an entertainment area and a large open space for banquets.

It was a sister restaurant to the original Plum Garden that opened in McHenry more than 50 years ago. That location, 3917 Main St., still is going strong, Moy said.

“It’s going well,” Moy said, adding that he bought the original Plum Garden from his father, Perry Moy, in May. “I think being in the community for 53-plus years has given us a customer base that we can draw on.”

The 34-year-old said the McHenry location is “home base.”

“Our location in McHenry is very strong, and I was hoping I could turn around our location in Crystal Lake,” Jason Moy said. “ ... This was our first time expanding and although we were excited for the challenges, there was a lot of unforeseen stuff that came up that we weren’t prepared for. We did our very best to turn it around and fix any problems, but it was a lot. We gave it our all.”

The younger Moy said some customers may have been confused with the Crystal Lake site having a different menu.

“After the first month, we switched our menu to match up to the McHenry one,” he said.

Jason Moy said he hopes another restaurant will “come here and be successful.”