After 40 years, a Mission restaurant staple closes to make way for affordable housing

As the sun streams in from the windows facing 16th Street, Joey and Judy Yu buzz around the Mission Hunan dining room in matching kelly-green aprons and white button-down shirts. They’ve been servers at this unpretentious Chinese restaurant for more than 20 years — and for the most part, the scene looks like any other Monday lunch rush.

A Spanish-speaking mom bounces her squirming toddler on her lap between bites of wonton soup. An elderly Chinese woman wearing a flat-brimmed baseball hat watches the static-y TV, while a construction worker scooches two tables together to squeeze in the rest of his group. Delivery drivers wearing motorcycle helmets stroll in to pick up orders. Beneath it all hums a quiet symphony of English, Spanish, Cantonese, and Mandarin.

But this isn’t just another Monday. This is the last Monday that Mission Hunan, a neighborhood staple serving affordable Chinese food for nearly 40 years, will be open at 16th and Capp streets. Friday will be the restaurant’s last day of service. 

The Mission Housing Development Corporation, which owns the building, plans to demolish the restaurant to make way for La Maravilla, the neighborhood’s largest and most controversial affordable housing development. The first of the project’s three phases will include the construction of a nine-story, 136-unit building to serve homeless residents. Construction vehicles and workers have already set up shop at the tiny-home community behind the restaurant in preparation for a December demolition. 

And for the loyal customers of Mission Hunan, the countdown clock is ticking.

Mission Hunan has been the life’s work of Bing Chiu Wong and his wife, Lai Mei Cheng, who opened it in 1987, with Cheng working the kitchen and Wong running the front of house. At the time, the neighborhood had few Chinese restaurants. “A lot of people who came in didn’t speak English, so I spoke Spanish with them, my amigos,” Wong says. He lived in Venezuela in his 20s and used that experience to his advantage as he fielded orders of General Tsao’s chicken, sweet-and-sour pork, and pan-fried potstickers.

Because of its blue-collar, multicultural ethos, Mission Hunan has been a restaurant-industry favorite for decades, says Eric Ehler, the chef and owner of pizzeria Outta Sight. “If you’ve worked in restaurants in San Francisco for at least five years, and you came here on a random day, you’d see your dishwasher, your line cook, and whoever else, because everyone comes here.”

Ehler guesses he’s eaten nearly every item on the restaurant’s expansive menu over the last 17 years. When he lived in Potrero Hill, he’d hop on his bike to grab a quick bite before making his way via the Wiggle to his job at Black Sands in the Lower Haight. There are many “bangers” on the Mission Hunan menu, he says,  and only a handful of items exceed $20 — a rarity even in the cheapest of the city’s Chinese joints. “Everyone else’s portions at restaurants get smaller and smaller,” Ehler says, pointing at a heaping plate of crispy salt-and-pepper pork. “I think that that got bigger.

“The people who come here are working-class people, blue-collar people, people of color from the area,” he continues. “When you come here, you know you can get a good-quality meal with big portions at a pretty reasonable price. Once you subtract that out of the equation of their lives, it’s so impactful.” 

When Ori Tom Ravid moved to San Francisco in 2021, he had a hard time finding work, and Mission Hunan helped him navigate those lean times. “Everyone has their thing that gets them through the day,” he says. “For me, that thing is Chinese food.” He’d order the combination chow mein topped with sweet-and-sour pork and would stretch it to last for two days.

But affordability is just part of the reason Ravid loves this hole-in-the-wall. “When I think of the 16th Street BART stop, I think of Mission Hunan,” he says. “It was a staple and a symbol of that neighborhood for so long. It served the community, and I’m really sad that it’s gone.”

There is a silver lining for fans — albeit one that requires a 18-minute BART ride. On Saturday, Judy and Joey Yu will start work at Andy’s Hong Kong Restaurant in South San Francisco, also owned by Wong and Cheng. Ehler says he’s willing to drive south to get his favorites, like hand-rolled crispy spring rolls, sticky-sweet sesame chicken, Korean fried chicken wings, three-meat chow mein, and dry bean curd with lamb clay pot.

Still, it won’t be quite the same, and the Mission won’t be either. Wong looks to retire soon — “I am old,” he says with a chuckle — and he knows what he’ll miss most about Mission Hunan.

“I will miss them,” he says. “I will miss my amigos.”