End of an Era: What Will Happen to the Iconic Chinese-Australian Restaurant?

Vinyl chairs, plastic table-covers, lazy Susans, Crown Lager, sizzling hot plates, sesame prawn toast with neon-red dipping sauce. Anyone who grew up in Australia knows the hallmarks of Chinese-Australian restaurants. 

There’s one in practically every regional centre, nationwide, alongside a pub and a post office. But, like the bygone milk bar that was institutionalised by post-WWII European migrants, the iconic Chinese-Australian restaurant will soon become a relic. The migrant families who’ve helmed the counters and stoves since the 1970s, 80s and 90s are beginning to jettison the burden of hospitality for retirement and, with dreams of less laborious lives for their children, are putting their restaurants on the market. But who will keep them going?  

In the central Victorian town of Yea, Eddie and Amy Suen have owned and run the Yea Chinese Restaurant since 1995. As the only Asian migrants in the population of a few hundred people when they arrived, they came searching for clean air and fresh opportunity.

Despite some initial resistance in the community, as well as exploitation and racism, they and their daughters Sandra and Jess soon collected “a legion of fans”, who’ve remained steadfast for 28 years and enjoyed thousands of plates of their signature Mongolian beef, pepper chicken and deep-fried ice cream.

“I got my first job at six years old, just putting the container lids on the meals,” Sandra told VICE.

“We very much grew up a part of the lifeblood of the kitchen and I think for my parents that's probably just an unfortunate necessity.

“My sister’s two years younger than me. Mum had to, like, strap Jess onto her back while she was cooking because they couldn't afford any help.”

Grown-up and with dreams of their own, Sandra and Jess have flown the coop for inner-city careers. Their parents Eddie and Amy, growing tired of flinging hot woks of sweet and sour pork every night and struggling with rising overheads and dwindling regional populations decided to put the site up for sale in early 2023. 

But months later the listing remains live.

“People don't want to take a punt on something like this,” Sandra said.

“I think I would be right to say there’s no interest in it as a Chinese restaurant. Some people were thinking of a cafe … some people were thinking an art gallery, and I think someone else was thinking of maybe a wine store. But no one wants the kitchen. 

“I think another part of it is, like, who would take that as a job today?

“Being a chef in a small regional community, I just can't think of many people in society today who want to do that.” 

The Chinese-Australian restaurant as we know it has played a leading role in the personal and collective histories of generations of Australians. 

“They were the fabric that held little towns together,” Gus*, the creator of the Your Local Chinese social media account dedicated to Australia’s iconic Chinese restaurant culture, told VICE. 

“Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, birthdays, christenings, first holy communions – everything was done at the local Chinese restaurant. You really had no other option.

“The [staff] became an extended family because they would look after you.”

Gus grew up in 1990s Sydney and has watched this breed of restaurant disappear from the city as the cost of doing business exploded, and tomato roses and curly parsley garnishes fell out of fashion. 

Since the dawn of iPhones and Instagram appetites and restaurant expectations in Australia have changed. Looking good is now as important as tasting good. 

And the advent of delivery apps, the rental crisis, the pandemic and an inflating cost of living have meant the nature of running a food service business has changed as well. 

This change has been much slower in regional communities, but Gus fears the end result of gentrification and homogenisation will be the same. 

“I can open up Uber Eats and there’s 50, 60 options at the click of a finger. It’s been very different in regional Australia over a long period of time. Regionally, there’s still such a strong community that goes to these places. They’re full to the gunnels with everyone from mum and dad with kids, half the local football team [to] a group of farmers, it’s everything.

“But as urban sprawl occurs … the utility value of the use of these buildings as a Chinese restaurant gets surpassed for development. They get sort of scooped up in the big concrete amalgamation.” 

Restaurant obituaries on Gus’s page are not uncommon as more institutions shut. While many hold on, there’s no escaping the reality that the people who run them are getting older and not a lot of people want to go to regional Australia to take up the mantle.

“I think it’s gonna be not whether there’s the demand for it, it’s gonna be whether you can find people to run them,” he said. 

Melbourne resident Vicky Tan, 27, is the child of two Chinese immigrants who have run a Chinese takeaway shop in the inner city – just off busy Chapel Street – for 25 years.

The Green Dragon is open six nights a week. Vicky’s parents, the sole staff members, shop and prep during the day before loading containers with fried rice and glossy stir-fried meats for four hours each service.

“It's all just old-school, where you come through the door and that's the only way you can get it. There's no UberEats or anything because those companies just take such a big cut it makes it almost unsustainable for small business,” Vicky said. 

Vicky attributes the shop’s longevity to its simple takeaway model, her parents’ unwavering dedication and the fact that they were able to buy the tiny building in the 90s, protecting them from landlords and developers. 

But she’s seen the business, the area – and her parents – start to loose steam. 

“You obviously need to profit from a business and people have this expectation that Chinese food should always be cheaper. It makes it really difficult,” she said.

“To be able to provide cheap, more affordable food we need to cook a lot more. But that load, I don't know, I can just see my parents slowing down. They’re in the early 60s.”

Vicky said her parents’ work is very labour-intensive and not the career they want for their only child.

“Mum's like, ‘We didn't work so hard for you to work in the restaurant again!’ That's what they always say.”

Vicky estimates few Chinese-Australian restaurants and takeaways would pass the business, the way they currently exist, on to their children. Any that do stay in the family will be given facelifts to stay relevant and lucrative. 

“Even if people try and take over [they would] make it fancy or expensive. It would just change the authenticity of it. 

“It's just hard to see it continuing, which is really sad.”

A new wave of nostalgia restaurants has flooded Sydney and Melbourne in recent years, incorporating childhood foods like fairy bread, sausage sangas and even foil-wrapped white-bread sandwiches with the crusts cut off onto high-end menus. 

It’s partly because we can’t grow up – we’ll always be hung up on the songs of our youths – and partly because we crave the familiar – why artists and DJs today recycle those songs into new tracks and edits. But, especially in Australia, we’re also scared of revealing or owning our wealth. Even the country’s richest sport mullets, claim to love cheap beer and wear clothes traditionally reserved for the working class. In restaurants, people feel less ashamed about being able to drop $500 on dinner if they’re eating everyday foods of white middle-Australia – like white bread.

Chinese-Australian classics like banana fritters and sweet and sour pork have also been given the linen-napkin treatment in a number of contemporary inner-city diners. For some, it’s the new generation carrying the torch. For others, it’s appropriation. 

Either way, it’s often good for business – prices have doubled and people love that stuff. 

“Some of the bigger groups in Sydney have had a go at resuscitating the traditional retro-regional Chinese food and I admire that because it’s a tip-of-the-hat to old days. But I think there’s a lot more to it than just recreating the dish, there’s a history,” Gus said.

“[Migrants] had to create westernised dishes … and that has then formed our version of Chinese food that is then institutional. [They had] to take the risk in doing that, in changing what they’re used to to cater for us.

“Migrants have come with nothing and set up restaurants in very difficult remote and unfamiliar locations and they’ve been there for 50 years and I just think that’s incredible.”

Our crowded dining landscape is now rapidly evolving and adapting to survive – out of necessity more than the innovation of the last few decades. 

As more families retire and more small businesses buckle, we all lose diversity and the Chinese-Australian classics that were born out of working-class, immigrant struggle will slowly fade to a memory – and a novelty. 

But for now, pull up a pastel blue vinyl chair, pour a Crownie into a refrigerated glass and order some sweet and sour pork. 

*Gus’s name has been changed for anonymity.

Aleksandra Bliszczyk is the Deputy Editor of VICE Australia. Follow her on Instagram.