DeKALB — Alex Henigan is excited to expand his Eggsclusive Cafe restaurant to Sycamore Road in DeKalb in 2014.
Henigan, one of the co-owners of Eggsclusive Cafe at 265 W. Peace Road in Sycamore, is planning to open a new restaurant at 2211 Sycamore Road by March or April. The 4,500-square foot building will be in the area where Small Furniture City once stood before the building was demolished earlier this year.
The Sycamore restaurant specializes in breakfast and lunch, and is open 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily.
"It's going to be a very unique breakfast experience, I'll tell you that," Henigan said.
Eggsclusive Cafe aspires to be more modern and upscale compared with other Midwestern breakfast houses, he said.
"We're exceptionally excited about the DeKalb location," he said. "We've been conceptualizing about making this accessible to the rest of the county because we're on the north side of Sycamore."
The cafe's owners also are planning to open another location in December at 7105 Cherryvale North Boulevard, Cherry Valley. Henigan said the almost 5,000-square foot Cherry Valley branch cost $650,000 to build and the owners are about halfway done hiring a new staff.
He said the DeKalb location will still need workers, and the owners are still discussing the construction of the building with architects. About 25 to 30 people work at the Sycamore location and he imagines a similar number will be employed at the two other locations.
The restaurant's owners were able to survive despite opening during an economic downturn in 2008. Henigan, along with lifelong friends, brothers Dennes and Peter Spyratos, wanted to create a restaurant that stood out from traditional family restaurants in the area.
"We opened in 2008, which was the worst," Henigan said. "We came to work everyday and... modified what we had to do to stay alive."
Peter Spyratos said the owners are branching out to DeKalb because not many people are aware of their Sycamore location. He said he's excited to set up a restaurant in a high-traffic location and spread the restaurant's brand.
"It's in a more centralized location in the county," Spyratos said.