Brothers Lee and Chay Tan are planning to open a new Coconut Kenny’s restaurant this summer in Ferndale at 1740 Labounty Drive, Suite 1, in the Cost Cutter strip mall.
The new restaurant will be about 2,400 square feet, which is much larger than Lee’s current space on James Street in Bellingham. In addition to the main dining room, the Ferndale restaurant will also have a banquet room.
“We are definitely looking forward to the new location where we can fit more people,” Lee said.
The suite was pretty much an empty room before they started improvements, Lee said, making it easier to design it how they want it.
The new restaurant will have the same Hawaiian beach-house style as the Bellingham location, and the menu of pizzas and barbecue dishes will be pretty much identical, with some likely additions, Lee said.
Coconut Kenny’s in Bellingham opened in 1999 and the Tans bought it in 2004 — they opened a restaurant in Sedro Woolley about four years after that. Lee said the two want to continue expanding the business, but they will wait to see how it goes in Ferndale before committing to any future locations.
The Tans are aiming to open the Ferndale restaurant in early July, Lee said, but at this point it’s hard to say whether they will meet that goal.
For more information, visit www.coconutkennys.com.