Crystal Lake’s Pho Royal restaurant owner to open bar later this year

Crystal Lake businessman Lam Nguyen, who owns several properties on the strip mall at Route 14 and Keith Avenue, hopes to switch out a bubble tea cafe with a bar in order to boost business, which he said has been slow.

The plan, Nguyen said through a translator, is to move the bubble tea cafe, Presotea, into the neighboring Vietnamese restaurant he owns, Pho Royal. Nguyen also owns the adjacent LT Nails and Spa.

A liquor license for the space was recommended for approval Wednesday at the Crystal Lake Planning and Zoning Commission meeting.

Nguyen said he came up with the name Beesy Bar by doing a searching online for fun names for a bar, Nguyen said through a translator.

At the moment, Nguyen doesn’t know what precisely the bar menu will look like, beyond beer and cocktails, but the plan is to have regular live “chill music” on weekends.

The bubble tea cafe currently has a stage, which will be kept for music and other performances, and the decor, which includes a colorful mural of the planets hanging from a tree, also will remain the same, Nguyen said.

“It will be nothing too fancy,” Nguyen said through the translator.

The bubble tea cafe, originally called Ding Tea, opened during the summer of 2019, while the restaurant and nail salon opened just before the pandemic.

Strong business at the nail salon has thus far been able to cover the slower business at the bubble tea cafe and restaurant, Nguyen said.

At the moment, Nguyen said he didn’t know when precisely the new bar might open but hoped it would be in the coming months.