This popular Fresno restaurant is probably closing. What will it take to save it?
For more than 30 years, Hunan Chinese Restaurant has had a solid reputation as one of the best Chinese restaurants in Fresno.
Walk down a shady breezeway at a shopping center at Cedar and Herndon avenues and you’ll find the restaurant with a 4-star Yelp rating known for its butter cream prawns and serving both Americanized Chinese food and traditional Chinese dishes.
But it’s in trouble.
In fact, it’s probably going to close, the manager said. He and the owners posted a note in the front window Sunday saying so.
“Together, we made it through the pandemic. Unfortunately, we might NOT be able to make it through the post-pandemic INFLATION,” it said.
It’s likely closing by the end of October if it can’t find a buyer, it said.
The business is for sale for $180,000, manager Isaac Huang said. He spoke exclusively to The Bee in a dim dining room before dinner service Thursday.
“We were not joking when we put the sign out,” he said. “We need to be prepared to be closing. It’s hard. People don’t believe it.”
He’s going public because he wants customers to use their gift cards and employees to prepare to be out of a job.
Anyone interested in buying the business is asked to email info@hunanwme.com.
Rising food costs, declining customers
The No. 1 problem biting into profits at Hunan: The climbing price of ingredients.
The cost of the white meat chicken went up 77% since before the pandemic in 2019, Huang said. A bottle of cooking oil went from $19 to $40. Green onions have doubled in price.
“We cannot control how much the onions cost,” he said. “I have no choice.”
On top of those increases, there’s less money coming in.
Weekday business has dropped about 25%. People are coming less often in general. It’s dead after 8 p.m., where once they still had plenty of customers at that time. Every time gas prices go up, fewer people eat out, he said.
More people are ordering family dinners — a deal for customers, but the restaurant doesn’t make much money off them, Huang said.
They’ve already raised prices and cut back expenses, including employee positions, he said.
Restaurant industry challenges
Rising costs are an issue facing every restaurant, said Raul Gutierrez Jr., owner of Papi’s Mex Grill and president of the Fresno chapter of the California Restaurant Association. Not just food, but rising wages, energy bills, rent and more.
“Restaurants are under duress,” he said. “We’re constantly dealing with inflation. We’re constantly dealing with employment issues.”
At least 92% of restaurant operators say inflation poses a “significant challenge” for their restaurant, according to the National Restaurant Association’s State of the Restaurant Industry 2023 report.
The typical restaurant saw food costs rise 21.8% between 2019 and 2022, the report said.
Most restaurants lose money or break even Mondays through Wednesdays, and make up for it on the weekends, Gutierrez said. Rising food costs makes that harder.
“It’s dramatic,” he said “Your margins are already so small, if you’re no longer relevant or busy, you’re going to buckle. Every owner has a breaking point.”
Several restaurants have been closing recently in Fresno, from Foster’s Freeze and a Baskin Robbins ice cream shop to longtime favorites such as Oka Japanese and the Yosemite Falls Cafe west of Highway 99.
Hunan Chinese
Hunan has been around for decades, but really made a name for itself when chef Zhongyi Liu bought it years ago. He was the former executive chef of the Grand Hotel Beijing and the winner of Chinese national cooking contests.
After working in the Bay Area, he came to Fresno to own his own restaurant. His fans followed, driving hours to try his food again, according to a 2008 Bee story. He later sold the restaurant to a pair of local sisters from Taiwan, Jennifer and Estella Pan, and new chefs were hired.
Even though the restaurant is named Hunan, it mostly specializes in spicy Sichuan cuisine (both are provinces in China).
It had a second location at Herndon and Clovis avenues in Clovis for about four years.
You used to have to ask for the “secret” traditional menu, though the restaurant combined the Americanized and authentic menus in recent years.
Hunan won the award for best Chinese restaurant from the California Restaurant Association in May. Gutierrez said he hand-delivered the award to the restaurant recently.
“Honestly, it’s very sad because they have a wonderful product,” he said.
