At 28,000 square feet, the newest outpost from Bay Area Cantonese cooking titans HL Peninsula claims to be the largest Cantonese restaurant in the United States.
The new restaurant, set inside a former Rite Aid pharmacy in Castro Valley, is the fifth HL Peninsula location to land in the Bay Area. With a capacity for 846 across a vast main hall and private dining rooms, it dwarfs San Francisco Chinatown’s venerable Far East Cafe — 15,000 square feet, 680 seats — and outsizes Bay Area dim sum institution Koi Palace’s forthcoming Daly City location, reported to occupy 20,000 square feet when it opens next to buzzing Korean food complex Jagalchi.
Castro Valley’s HL Peninsula is even larger than the famed Elizabeth Street outpost of New York City’s Jing Fong, a dim sum restaurant that spanned 25,000 square feet until its closing in 2021. (Its successor as the city’s premiere gargantuan dining hall, an outpost of the Taiwanese dumpling empireDin Tai Fung also registers at 25,000 square feet, but only seats 450 or so.) China Live, in San Francisco’s Chinatown, is more expansive at 30,000 square feet, but the complex comprises two separate restaurants and a bar.
Filling such a sprawling establishment space may seem like a tall order, but HL Peninsula spokesperson Christina Liu said “we found that there are no large spaces for family gatherings in the area,” which has seen a population boom in the past decade. The most notable growth, in nearby Dublin, saw its population soar from 46,000 in 2010 to 73,000 in 2020 — making it the fastest growing city in California — and was driven in part by a burgeoning Asian population that has fueled a demand for new restaurants.
HL Peninsula’s vast dining room can fit up to 100 tables of varying sizes, from four tops to 10-seaters, said Liu, while the main dining room can be split into three separate zones for parties and banquets. There are also nine private dining rooms for smaller groups. The most lavish one features karaoke equipment and a marble table with 30 chairs. To make passing dishes around easier, an automated lazy susan keeps dim sum and meats moving at a steady pace…