Q&A: Peking Village Succeeds With Old Family Recipes

When Johnny Chen moved with his parents from Southern California to Sacramento in 1989, he couldn’t have imagined that he’d be running , the small Chinese restaurant they opened in Rosemont Plaza. A former contractor and apartment manager, he has gotten to know his loyal customers well—in fact, he said that when they call, he can tell who it is by their voice, and that sometimes their children will call him Uncle Johnny.

Rosemont Patch talked with Chen about the family restaurant, how he got involved in the business and how the restaurant has stayed successful after 22 years of business.

Can you give me a little history of the restaurant?

“This is a family restaurant. It started with my whole family, with my parents, and now they’re retired, so I still continue on with the business. So it’s been a long time. I think this is probably the oldest business, if you talk about ownership, in this shopping center. I believe another store same year, opened with us, same ownership. I’ve seen many people come and many people go. We still kept our same recipe, so even in the tough business time, we’re still doing okay. I see a lot of old customers coming back and when they were a kid they started eating here, and now they go out and they have a family and they bring their children to come back. So we’re still doing OK, so far.”

What’s the most popular dish here?

“The most popular dish is the sesame chicken, general chicken, we have very good shrimp called walnut shrimp and our chow mein is very good. We serve small, skinny, thin noodles, and you don’t find them anyplace around.”

Why did the family decide to move here and get into the restaurant business?

“At that time, we came from Southern California, from South Pasadena. We moved over here because we had relatives, a lot of relatives. Altogether, my father has nine brothers and sisters and in Sacramento, we have 60 people, all relatives, together. So every year, we celebrate major holidays—like Chinese New Year, July 4th, Labor Day, Christmas and Thanksgiving—all major holidays we get together in my uncle’s house. So every time we have 60 people around. We decide to open a business because my parents, they have experience in a Chinese restaurant. So I helped them to start a business—at that time, they didn’t speak English, so I got involved. And somehow, I graduated from school, and I still continue running this business.”

Tell me about your loyal customers.

“Eighty percent of my customers are loyal customers. As you know, in this Rosemont shopping center, it’s not a tourist area, it’s all restaurants and some businesses around. We don’t really do a lot of advertising, especially in this past 10 years. We never do [advertising], but it’s just a word of mouth—people tell people.”

What makes the restaurant special? What sets it apart from other Chinese restaurants in the area?

“I haven’t gone to other restaurants that much, but I do have my own way of running this business, like treating the customer right and keeping our own recipe, so I guess that’s what [unique] about this business.”