It’s been an entire year since we first told you about 1120 S. Front St., which was, at that time, a stalled construction site where a warehouse had been demolished. At the time, we promised an eventual Vietnamese restaurant from Liem Ma, owner of Cafe Viet Huong at 11th & Washington.

Way back when

A year ago

Then in January, we checked back in on this location, noting that construction had resumed. We figured that the Pho would be flowing by the springtime.

Progress in January

Turns out, it took just a little longer to get the restaurant open. But a couple of weeks ago, Mekong River threw its doors open and Pennsport hasn’t been the same since. They will be serving alcohol in the near future, but are byob…

On a recent trip to South St., we were amazed at the condition of 216-218 South St., a building that’s been empty and dilapidated for years. We remember getting dollar beers and dollar slices during happy hour at Malokai’s back in the day, and we never really understood why there was a Lorenzo’s II a half a block from Lorenzo’s Pizza. But that was almost ten years ago! In the intervening years, both businesses were shuttered and the building fell into disrepair.

In the past

In the last year or so (and maybe we were just the last to notice), the building has been transformed into a usable space, with new windows and what appears to be a new facade. We’re not wild about the look of the building now, but it’s definitely an improvement.

On our way home from Target, coming up Front St., we noticed this construction site with no workers in sight. Let’s take a walk down memory lane, and recall what 1120 S. Front St. looked like until recently:

Image Copyright Google 2011

According to the building permit, the property is owned by Giang and Sons Real Estate. We reached out to Giang, and got his son Liem on the phone.  Liem explained that after spending two years getting the necessary variances, they hired a contractor to build a two-story structure with a restaurant space on the first floor and two apartments upstairs. The contractor knocked down some of the existing building, rebuilt the four walls in the picture, and then stopped working. Liem says that they are currently getting estimates on completing the job and should be resuming work very soon.

As…