A long-dormant Main Line restaurant complex is finally getting new life
The extravagant La Jonquille and Shiraz in Devon will become the second location of the popular Salt Korean BBQ restaurant and a luxe Japanese restaurant.
New life is on the way to the landmark mosaic-tiled Main Line building that housed the Devon restaurants La Jonquille and Shiraz. The complex has sat idle since the restaurants’ closing nearly two decades ago.
Rich Kim, an owner of the critically acclaimed Salt Korean BBQ in North Wales, Montgomery County, told The Inquirer that he and his partners will open a second location of Salt on the first floor and a fine-dining Japanese restaurant on the second floor. A timeline is not fixed, but Kim said he hopes to open in eight months.
Though some of the over-the-top decor will be preserved, he said, “we’re going to flip it upside down. People will be wowed.” He promised an open kitchen and a contemporary look at Salt II, as the ground-floor restaurant will be known.
Kim said he had been scouring the Main Line for some time. “I was blown away when I saw this,” he said. The property, with two buildings on about 2 acres, has 130 parking spaces. He intends to lease out the second building, which previously housed a spa and aesthetician’s office.
The sale will revive a long-dormant property at Lancaster Avenue and Berkley Road in Tredyffrin Township, on the doorstep to Chester County.
La Jonquille, a lavishly appointed French restaurant on the first floor with 30-foot ceilings, and Shiraz, a Persian restaurant and banquet room upstairs with hand-hammered murals and hand-painted tile, opened in fall 1999 as the passion project of now-retired Main Line neurologist Matt Vegari and his wife, Sheila, who were eager to showcase the cuisine of his childhood in Iran.
Friends had talked the Vegaris into adding the French restaurant and an adjoining brasserie to improve the project’s financial prospects.
Vegari did not respond to a text message Friday seeking comment.
The project’s reported $10 million price tag — about twice that in 2025 dollars — included the collection of parcels that were razed to build the complex. The main building is clad in fieldstone and brick and banded with blue-and-white Persian tiles.
Adding to the cachet, the Vegaris brought in a chef from Le Bec-Fin for La Jonquille, a chef from Iran for Shiraz, and a sommelier from the Dilworthtown Inn to oversee a wine collection of more than 8,500 bottles.
Everything about the operation was fulsome. Inquirer critic Craig LaBan called La Jonquille “the pinnacle of gaudy excess — panels of padded fabric on walls of padded fabric, and that Versailles-size chandelier. It’s a doozy, but I’d hate to clean it.”
After what Vegari described at the time as a small kitchen fire and management issues, the restaurants closed in 2001. Starting in 2003, Shiraz reopened in fits and starts before the complex closed permanently a few years later. Parts of it were subdivided into offices.
The complex’s most recent asking price was not disclosed in the real estate flyer. A video tour was posted in 2017.