This new chicken wing restaurant hopes to be a ‘cozy neighborhood spot’ in Macon

When Daniel Sung, from Atlanta, thinks about his first memories of cooking, he thinks about Waffle House. His parents would take him to eat there about once a month when he was a kid, and he was captivated by watching the cooks work.

His mother used to work at Japanese restaurants as well, and he has similar memories watching the chefs create cuisines from sushi to hibachi. He was hooked. The smells and sounds drew him in and eventually inspired him to start cooking himself.

“Those were the type of restaurants that you could see people cooking so that got me interested in getting into that field,” he said.

Sung opened a restaurant in Macon called Chick-in-Box at 5540 Thomaston Road. The restaurant, which opened in May, serves chicken wings, fried seafood, cheeseburgers and Philly cheesesteaks.

Sung was living and working in Augusta when his dad called him to tell him he had found the perfect spot for Sung to open a restaurant in Macon. He had never lived in Macon, but he saw the opportunity as a way for him to reconnect with his dad.

“We both live together. We spend time every night eating dinner and talking about business and other ideas,” he said.

Sung’s parents both immigrated to the U.S. from Korea when they were young and met in the U.S. Although they cooked great Korean food, Sung said they also loved to cook American-style food. It didn’t matter the style of food as long as it was good food to eat, he said.

“They just enjoyed cooking in general as a hobby,” he said.

Sung’s first experience in the restaurant industry was as a dishwasher, and he slowly moved up.

“I did a little bit of serving also, and then, I found my way back into the kitchen and just went up the ladder from there,” he said.

He has worked as a chef in restaurants in Atlanta, such as St. Cecilia, The Betty and King and Duke, and he attended culinary school in Seoul, South Korea at Le Cordon Bleu - Sookmyung Academy.

Chick-in-Box is open 11 a.m.-8:30 p.m. Monday-Saturday, and Sung said the restaurant is a cozy neighborhood spot with fresh food.

“I just hope to become just like a local neighborhood spot that people can come by and get some chicken wings, some burgers, Philly’s, fried seafood, you know, everything that we’re offering, and just become a small, local, neighborhood spot to go to,” he said.

This story was originally published October 27, 2023 at 11:47 AM.