GREENFIELD — Almost six years after Swostik Rana Magar first welcomed customers to his Indian and Nepalese restaurant Namaste on Main Street, the restaurateur has opened his second eatery, L’Amour, on Chestnut Street in Springfield.

Though the new 111 Chestnut St. location serves similar Indian, Nepalese, Pakistani and Mediterranean dishes to Namaste, Rana Magar said L’Amour’s menu will be entirely halal to accommodate Springfield’s Muslim population.

“There’s a large Muslim community in Springfield and there are a lot of Indian restaurants, but nobody is offering food to the Muslim community. We knew that there was a gap over there,” Rana Magar said.

The new location also features a banquet hall, allowing the business to host private celebrations and events, as well as a full-service bar.

Rana Magar cut his teeth working at the India Pavilion restaurant in Cambridge as a student more than 20 years ago. He later went on to work at a variety of restaurants, such as Au Bon Pain and Burger King, before opening Namaste in 2019.

The restaurant owner said he had always considered expanding, but was worried that opening a new restaurant would divert focus from his Greenfield establishment.

Rana Magar said the years of support his business has received from Greenfield customers, the Franklin County Chamber of Commerce and the Franklin County Community Development Center, which provided him a working capital loan, encouraged him to open a second restaurant.

“We had a lot customers from the Springfield area coming to Namaste, so for a lot of for years people have been telling me, ‘It’d be nice if you opened in the Springfield area,’” he noted.

Since Namaste already attracted a significant Springfield customer base, Rana Magar said the city seemed like a prime area for expansion. He said the additional Springfield employees will be helpful on days where one restaurant is short-staffed.

“COVID was a very hard time for us, and during that time, the whole community everybody was very supportive, even the city of Greenfield, everybody. I’m very blessed to be doing business in Greenfield,” Rana Magar said. “Greenfield, it’s like my first love, and we’re not planning to leave. ... Now, when our customers travel to the Springfield area, they will be able to get the same food as Namaste.”

The Springfield restaurant is open daily from 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. It can be reached by phone at 413-301-5333 or by email at lamourspringfield@gmail.com. For more information about L’Amour, visit the business’ website at lamourspringfield.com.

Anthony Cammalleri can be reached at acammalleri@recorder.com or 413-930-4429.