C harles Murray has come a long way since his homeless youth, rising to become a chef, tennis pro, downtown restaurateur and now, the rejuvenator of a neighborhood.

When Murray, 46, opens New Orleans Grill in the building where Fanny’s World Famous Restaurant used to be, at 1601 Simpson St., within the next month, he will help revive a part of Evanston that lost a major symbol when Fanny’s closed in 1987.

Charles Murray remembers when he started working at Fanny’s 33 years ago. His first job was busing trays.

“Not busboy — that was a promotion,” Murray explained. “I had to clean up the busboy’s trays.”

While Murray was working at Fanny’s, he also worked at a job cleaning Northwestern’s tennis courts. One day he came to work at Fanny’s and saw that the man who fried chicken for the restaurant was drunk with his head in the flour. Fanny Lazzar, the restaurant’s owner, desperately needed someone to prepare the chicken, so Murray stepped in.