Well, this doesn’t look good for the future of one of Chicago’s longest-lived middle eastern restaurants. The two brothers who, between them, own the Reza’s Restaurants, a three-restaurant Persian chain, and the land they sit on, are in a dispute alleging murder and arson threats and failure to pay rent. Reza Toulabi owns the properties, while his brother Joseph owns the restaurants, the first of which (in Andersonville) opened in the early 1980s. Reza has alleged that Joseph has ceased paying rent on the properties and has displayed erratic behavior including making threats to kill his brother and to burn down the restaurants; there has apparently been no response from Joseph to the accusations. A restaurant broker draws an obvious conclusion about the underlying businesses in the dispute:
“It’s definitely not a good sign,” he said. “If they [were] rolling in the dough, it’s a lot less likely they’d be in feud.”
