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.
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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.