Popular Middle GA restaurant reopens dining room for 1st time since start of pandemic

After being closed for more than a year, the dining room of this popular Chinese restaurant off Riverside Drive in Macon has reopened with limited seating capacity.

Mandarin closed its dining room in March 2020 due to COVID-19, said Darren Gao, the youngest son of owners Ming Gao and Yan Chow.

The dining room reopened a week ago Thursday with one section closed off. The restaurant can still seat about 60 people, even with its limited capacity.

“It’s been pretty busy — occasionally there could be factors to it like low staffing, but it’s been pretty popular,” Darren Gao said.

The restaurant, located at 3086 Riverside Drive, remained open for takeout throughout the ongoing pandemic.

His parents had closed the dining room because the socially distancing requirements then would have meant too few customers to feasibly remain operational, Gao said. They also considered the safety of their staff as well, he said.

While closed, the restaurant underwent some work, including swapping some of the carpeted area for hardwood flooring and changing the wallpaper where needed, he said.

Family owned and operated

His parents have owned the restaurant for nearly 10 years.

They met in Brooklyn after emigrating separately to the U.S from the Fujian province on the southeastern coast of China. Gao and his brother were also born in Brooklyn.

His parents, who became U.S. citizens, owned a restaurant in the Atlanta area before relocating the family to Macon to open their current restaurant.

Gao works at the restaurant mostly on weekends and in the summer when they’re short staffed. He waits tables and packs takeout orders.

Studying hospitality and food industry administration at the University of Georgia in Athens, Gao said he wants to follow in his parents’ footsteps and own his own restaurant.

“It’s definitely losing sleep — and very time consuming,” Gao said. “But at the end of the day, I guess, if you really love sitting down with customers and meeting new people, this really is a great field to be in.”

The restaurant is at the corner of Riverside and Northside drives. Operating hours “right now” are Tuesday from Sunday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. for dine-in.

“But we can push take-out until like 10 p.m.,” Gao said.

The restaurant also offers catering services. The number is 478-477-5728.

This story was originally published August 5, 2021 at 11:33 AM.