Former Cheel restaurant building in Thiensville sold to owners of Saffron and Aya

Milwaukee restaurateurs Fatima and Hanish Kumar have purchased the former Cheel building in Thiensville.

The Cheel was a Nepalese restaurant that opened in Thiensville in 2014. It occupied a historic building, built in 1895, at 105 S. Main St. The building was severely damaged by fire in 2020, and had to be torn down. The owners of The Cheel built a new building at the site, which opened in late 2023, but the restaurant closed in 2024.

The Cheel’s two-story, 6,800-square-foot building, its 500-square-foot outdoor bar, called The Baaree, and an adjacent 2,600-square-foot building at 107 Buntrock Ave., formerly occupied by engineering staffing and technical services firm CORE Consulting, were included in the deal, according to state records.

The property was sold by Oak Creek-based Tri City National Bank for $1.55 million, according to state records.

Fatima and Hanish Kumar are the owners of Saffron, an Indian restaurant in Milwaukee’s Historic Third Ward, and Aya, a Middle Eastern restaurant in downtown Milwaukee.

The Kumars announced their purchase of the building, indicating that they plan to open a new restaurant there, but they did not disclose their specific plans, according to a report from WISN-TV Channel 12, a media partner of BizTimes Milwaukee.