47 years after parents opened Great Castle, family prepares to pass along landmark Chinese restaurant to new owners

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) – Is one of Bakersfield’s best-loved restaurants closing? All good things must come to an end, but please, say it ain’t so about Great Castle. Well, it ain’t so.

Bakersfield’s most famous Chinese restaurant, Great Castle, is changing hands and not closing, as some may have feared.

The restaurant, which opened in 1978, is being passed along to a new generation of restaurateurs.

The Union Avenue institution is in escrow, having been purchased by a team of four buyers identified only as China 123 Inc. – two partners from L.A. and two from Bakersfield who own a chain of ramen restaurants.

Their seven-figure Small Business Administration loan is for the business, the property and the distinctive building, whose white cinder block facade gives it a castle-type look.

Yang Li Wang (pronounced Yung Lee Wong) and her sister Mei Li Wang (May Li Wong), along with brother Steve Wang (Steve Wong), have been wanting to retire because their kids chose professions that do not involve chopsticks. That doesn’t make the change any easier for the owners, who started working there in their early 20s.

But it was a tough decision nonetheless.

“We cry when the parties agreed to the sale,” said Yang Li Wang, 68. “We cry. We feel so sad. Because since mommy, daddy start (the business in 1978 after immigrating from Taiwan), we start together. But mommy, daddy working till they die. So I think we don’t want that kind of life.”

Now they can “finally retire,” said her sister, Mei Li Wang, 69. “We can sleep in.”

“Don’t need to wake up until natural wakeup,” Yang Li Wang said. “And the sad (part) is, (the restaurant is) just like your baby. You know, 47 years. That’s a long time. Very sad. We have a nice customer here. Just like a friend. Just like a family.”

“Nice people,”  Mei Li Wang said. “Young people. More power, I think (to work hard).”

“Yes, more power,”  said Yang Li Wang. “They’re only 30 something, I think, 38. They (are) very smart people, nice people.”

Great Castle is not pulling up the drawbridge permanently. The people behind China 123 Inc, which filed an application with the state Alcoholic Beverage Control in mid-August, first visited the restaurant one very busy March day and liked what they saw. China 123 could take over as early as the end of this month, and the Wangs will stick around to train them.

Once upon a time Union Avenue – the old U-S 99 – was a bustling commercial strip and Great Castle was just one of several popular restaurants.

“You remember a long time ago when we first opened?,” said Yang Li. “My goodness, Black Angus, Benji’s, Maitia. All the nice restaurants in Bakersfield, Union Avenue. We are the only one left. So you have good food, good service, people come, no matter what location you are.”

So if you want to say goodbye to these old friends, now is the time  – now or sometime soon. But it seems a safe bet the new restaurant owners would really like to be our friends as well.

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