Former Chateau Restaurant building in Manchester sold for $1.2 million
Sep. 15—A Bedford group bought the long vacant location of the former iconic Chateau Restaurant on Hanover Street in Manchester for $1.2 million.
The building at 201 Hanover St. was most recently Veranda Martini Bar and Grille, which closed in August 2017. The building has been vacant since.
The property sold last month to 201 Hanover Street LLC, with Fakhar Ud Din listed as manager.
Ud Din said his group hopes to open a restaurant at the location, but no plans have been finalized yet. He declined further comment.
The Chateau had been known for hosting many political figures, such as Ronald Reagan, Al Gore and the Clintons.
Robert Baines, who served as Manchester mayor from 2000 to 2005, remembers the restaurant as a political and social gathering spot. He remembers musicians who played piano and saxophone.
"People would sit around the piano bar and chit chat," he said. "That is where all the politicians went after their meetings ... It was just a great gathering spot. It was a really nice, classy restaurant."
The building also hosted banquets, such as retirement parties, union meetings and weddings, including Baines's to his wife, Maureen, 48 years ago.
"I had political events there. In fact the night I lost my last election I had my gathering there," he said.
He saw Birch Evans Bayh, a Democratic U.S. senator from Indiana who ran for president in 1976 and Gore speak there.
"Just about every politician of that time would have their gathering there," Baines said.
Thursday nights were always busy as people typically shopped downtown. Sometimes there were lines out the door.
In 2015, then-owners Yash and Janice Pal, who owned the restaurant since the 1970s, transformed the Chateau to Veranda Martini Bar and Grille, in part to try to lure younger diners. The menu featured Asian, Japanese, Chinese, European influences.
About a decade before, the Pals opened Tenderloin Room Steak House and Martini Lounge at The Chateau.
The building likely needs expensive repairs, such as a sprinkler system needed to meet code, Baines said.
He said the restaurant had a similar esteem to the Puritan Backroom on Hooksett Road.
"The Chateau was the place to go in Manchester for anybody who was anybody," he said.
