Jackie Huang was taking down orders again, items like General Tso’s Chicken. On March 22, a three-alarm fire destroyed his restaurant of almost eight years, Peking House Chinese Restaurant, along with several other businesses in Westchester Square, a busy commercial area in the East Bronx. The fire ripped through several red-brick buildings, made news headlines and threatened the livelihoods of six business owners.

Luckily for Huang, it took him only a couple of days to reopen a few blocks away, at an out of business Chinese restaurant on the less crowded East Tremont Avenue.

“Business is good here, but it’s very quiet,” Huang said. “Everyone knew me on the Square.”

Westchester Square is a busting area with an array of restaurants and convenience stores, near a subway stop. Though Huang has faced the challenges of moving his business since the fire, he considers himself lucky. There are other owners who are less fortunate. Barbara Andreu, for instance, the owner of National Coffee House, was still looking for a new spot, weeks after the fire.

The Westchester Square Merchants Association has helped some of those businesses relocate, and is also looking to possibly reopen some of them in their original locations, when the buildings are restored.

John Bonizio, president of the merchants association, said his organization provided funds to help some business relocate. Huang was one such owner who made use of the funds, saying that it laid the foundation for him to open in a new area. “It wasn’t easy,”

Bonizio said. “But we’ve found or are finding the right space, and they’re on their way.”

On the plywood barrier that surrounds the destroyed buildings, posted signs show where the businesses have relocated. The nail shop has temporarily moved across the street. The barbers from the chain store Osvaldo’s Barber Shop have found work at another Osvaldo’s on Castle Hill Avenue, a neighborhood 10 minutes away.

“Work is great here,” one of those barbers, Claudio Perez, a 33 year old said as he snipped a customer’s hair at his new place of employment. “We weren’t affected by the fire.”

Despite the signs advertising, some customers say they won’t make the effort to find the businesses. “That’s too far, [and] I’m too lazy,” Yannis Trittas, an 18-year-old Lehman High School student said recently when he passed the burned down buildings. “I would always go to the Chinese food shop everyday after school right here, since it’s so close. I loved the egg rolls. But I won’t be traveling just to get it again.”

Nevertheless, Huang says he is growing accustomed to his new storefront and hopes some of his old customers will make the effort to pay him a visit.

“I’m hoping the move turns out to be ag ood thing for me,” he said.