Bradenton Chinese restaurant closes this week. It was the owners’ American dream
After more than 30 years serving egg rolls, Kung Pao chicken, sweet and sour shrimp, and other favorites, the owners of Panda Garden Restaurant are turning out the lights for the final time on Friday.
For their long-time fans, like Guy Singletary and Brent Smith, who have had lunch twice a week at 3240 14th St. W., for the better part of two decades, the closing is bittersweet.
“This is a landmark. I understand that he has to make the best decision for his family, but it won’t be the same,” Singletary said.
Beyond the disappointment, Panda Garden Restaurant also represents a triumph of the American dream.
When he was just 14, Ny Lay gathered his four younger siblings to plan their escape from the killing fields of Cambodia.
“In 1975, my parents, my two older brothers and my older sister were killed. I became responsible — as the oldest at 14 — for my two younger sisters and two younger brothers. I decided we had to run. We spent three days traveling across the mountains. We hid in the day and traveled at night. There was pressure to run, or sit and wait — taking the chance you might die. I had no choice. I explained to my brothers and sisters that we had to leave,” Lay told the Bradenton Herald in 1990.
The brothers and sisters spent almost 2 1/2 years in a refugee camp in Thailand before coming to the United States. When he arrived in the U.S., he had a shirt and a pair of pants, and no money.
After working for others for nine years, Lay and his family bought Panda Garden.
Reflecting on a lifetime of hard work, Lay this week said his family is getting older and wants to enjoy life, and travel.
“Life is too short,” he said. “I have been working 45 years.”
Since the announcement of the restaurant’s closing, it has been flooded daily by well wishers and members of the community getting lunch and dinner for the last time, Lay’s niece, Judith Chiang, said in an email.
“We have received mail from so many telling us that they will miss us, and even got a letter from someone who moved to Hawaii from Bradenton asking for a recipe for a certain dish that they can’t get anywhere on the island,” she said.
Chiang reflected on the genocide carried out by the Khmer Rouge against its own people, creating a horror and a hardship that motivated her family to succeed in a new country. And succeed they did.
She cited a recent New York Times article on a trend of Chinese restaurants closing across America. The trend is actually tied to the success of the children of Chinese restaurant owners.
“In short, they worked in restaurants so that we would not have to,” said Chiang, herself an example, graduating from the University of South Florida and today working in cybersecurity.
“This is also immensely personal. The restaurant is where I grew up, learned to walk, and came to understand the sacrifices my family made for me and my cousins,” Chiang said.
Although Lay and his family were citizens of Cambodia, they were ethnic Chinese, giving them an authentic understanding of Chinese cuisine.
As Singletary and Smith sat down for perhaps their last meal at Panda Garden, the friends said they felt like they were attending a funeral.
“I started eating here when I was a little kid,” Singletary said.
Smith added: “It’s like family.”
Gary Waller also paid a visit to Panda Garden on Thursday and left with a bag of egg rolls, what he called the best in the area.
The Panda Garden property has been sold, and will become part of the Off Lease Only car dealership being constructed around the restaurant..
