When Yami Hu, the founder and head brewer of Three Legged Brewing wanted to put down permanent roots and open a brick-and-mortar coffee brewery, she wanted to choose somewhere local — and settled on the Lindenhurst Center. Three Legged Brewing will be one of the early businesses contributing to the Lindenhurst strip mall’s recent revitalization.
Hu, a Grayslake resident, said that her year-old company makes “all-natural, zero-calorie cold brews that also taste really good.” The coffee company has developed a fanbase over the past year that would back up that statement. In 2023, Hu estimated that Three Legged Brewing made 150 stops at different farmers markets throughout the area.
The idea for the coffee company started six years ago, according to Hu, when she was diagnosed with cancer.
“I was so into coffee, but I couldn’t find anything in a market, or a grocery store that tasted like a treat, but without the sugar or cream in it,” Hu said. “So, I made a challenge for myself to create some coffee that tastes good, but is also clean.”
Hu’s been home-brewing coffee since then and started selling her products at farmers markets last year. At the farmers markets, Three Legged Brewing sold the company’s nitro cold brew and carbonated cold brew tea on tap and also sold cans of cold brew coffee.
After the company’s success at the farmers markets last year, Hu wanted to open up a brick-and-mortar shop. Three Legged Brewing plans to replicate their farmers market offerings at the new Lindenhurst brewery, in a taproom setting.
“We don’t want to be just another coffee shop, we want to be different,” Hu said. “We want to be a community-centric, neighborhood place, where people can have delicious drinks and socialize. From a business standpoint, we operate like a brewery. We’ll have brew tanks, and you’ll be able to see all the tanks.”
Construction is currently ongoing at Three Legged Brewing, and the coffee company is hiring staff to work at the new Lindenhurst location. They tentatively plan to open in April, and recently launched a Kickstarter, to raise $15,000 to continue developing the brewery and launching the next generation of Three Legged Brewing’s canned cold brew.
But Three Legged Brewing isn’t the only new business opening up in the Lindenhurst Center — instead, it’s one of eight. The coffee brewery is part of a recent revitalization of the strip mall, which sits alongside Grand Avenue in Lindenhurst and was formerly known as the Linden Plaza. For several years, many of the Linden Plaza’s units sat vacant, and it was something that the Village of Lindenhurst viewed as a priority.
In addition to vacant units, the Linden Plaza’s parking lot had numerous potholes. Once the strip mall came under new ownership, the parking lot was repaved, and the building was repainted and new businesses began to sign leases.
While Three Legged Brewing has yet to open its doors, Sammie’s, a local sandwich chain, and Damashkey Cuisine, a Mediterranean restaurant, have both opened up within the past month and have received plenty of support from the community. According to its owners, Damashkey Cuisine had to close early because the restaurant ran out of food due to high demand.
“It’s so uplifting to see the community embrace all the new businesses there,” Suchy said. “It’s really a partnership in a way. The Lindenhurst Center has a new life — now it’s our turn as a community to keep it alive.”
The struggling Linden Plaza was a priority for the Village of Lindenhurst for several years, according to Suchy.
“The new Lindenhurst Center, formerly the Linden Plaza, has been one of our top priorities,” said Lindenhurst Trustee Dawn Suchy. “It had been a source of negativity for so long and without a doubt one of our biggest challenges.”
To help address the struggling strip mall, and other areas throughout the Village, Lindenhurst hired Anita Archambeau in 2022 as the Village’s Economic Development Specialist. Archambeau said that having these new businesses not only benefits the community by having new places to eat and shop but also because it “diversifies the tax base,” according to Archambeau.
“It creates less burden on residents, and creates more options to support local businesses, residents, and retail establishments,” Archambeau said. “It creates a better and more sustainable community health from an economic perspective. Residents don’t have to travel as far to get their needs accomplished and it makes lives a little bit easier.”
She said that it’s been a main priority of the Village Board to “resurrect the area,” which was aided by the Lindenhurst Center coming under new ownership. In 2023, it was acquired by Good Harbor Commercial Real Estate, a real estate company based in Boston, who Archambeau and Suchy credit having brought in new businesses to the formerly struggling site.
“The new owners have done an excellent job, they’ve committed to projects and are doing them,” Suchy said. “I find it amazing how much they’ve accomplished in such a short time.”
