Island Appetite Overwhelms Chon Saan Kitchen

For years, getting a Chon Saan meal in San Pedro sometimes required a friend in Belize City, a carefully packed order and a flight to the island. But those days are over. The popular Belizean-Chinese restaurant has opened its first San Pedro location, and customers poured in so quickly that what was supposed to be a soft opening became an all-out kitchen rush. Shane Williams reports.

 

Shane Williams, Reporting

Before Chon Saan Palace opened in San Pedro, residents went to extraordinary lengths to satisfy their cravings. Some asked relatives or friends to pick up meals in Belize City. Others placed orders and flew the food to the island. Now, the restaurant has eliminated the middleman and the plane ticket. But if the owners expected to ease quietly into business, San Pedro had other plans. The doors opened, customers flooded in and the kitchen struggled to keep pace. Lines stretched, orders piled up and even additional workers brought in from Belize City could not prevent delays. Still, many customers considered the wait a small inconvenience after spending years bringing the restaurant’s food across the Caribbean Sea.

 

Melani Paz, Customer

“I’ve always been a customer of Chon Saan in the city and every time I go there I make sure I bring back stuff from there for my kids and grandkids at home because they love it so them opening here, I had to come in on the first day.”

 

For customers such as Melani Paz, the opening was more than the arrival of another restaurant. It brought a familiar Belize City favorite directly to families who had already been enjoying its meals for years. Chon Saan Palace has operated in Belize since 1974, when Armando Chang opened the first restaurant on Freetown Road. Chang had migrated from China in 1961. Over the next five decades, the family business blended Chinese culinary traditions with Belizean tastes and ingredients, building a following that extended far beyond Belize City.

 

Lee Mark Chang, Owner, Chon Saan Restaurant

“Boy, we have a lot of people here. Tropic, I think Tropic does a lot of food. Any one of the San Pedranos that go to Belize City, they pick up food and they bring it home and put it all in their hand. That’s what they tell me.”

 

Jorge Aldana was among the customers who previously relied on someone in Belize City to place an order and send the food by plane. The new location means island residents can now get the same meals without coordinating an airborne delivery.

 

Jorge Aldana, Customer

“I’ve always liked dining at Chon Saan. I mean, that’s one of my places that I go in Belize City. Previously to that, what we used to do is to have a guy in Belize City order for us, put the order on the plane when we want to eat Chon Saan food. And that’s one of the things that we have done for the past.”

 

Owner Lee Mark Chang knew that customers were regularly carrying the restaurant’s food to San Pedro. So, when a rental space became available on the island, Chang and the business partners saw an opportunity to take Chon Saan directly to an established customer base.

 

Lee Mark Chang

“The opportunity presented itself. This was a rental space before, and it became vacant. Me and my partners decided, you know what? I could try a Chon Saan and make sure that it’s good, different. And this is what you see right now.”

 

What the team may not have anticipated was just how quickly San Pedro would respond. The restaurant planned a low-key opening, but the steady stream of customers soon overwhelmed the kitchen. Orders took longer than expected, but some customers said the heavy turnout made the delays understandable.

 

Melani Paz

“The food did take a little bit but I can understand being that first of all, it was supposedly a soft opening and the fact that they had so many people here, I don’t think Lee Mark expected that on the first day.”

 

Chang acknowledges that the long waits frustrated customers. Chang apologized and says the team is adjusting its operation to manage the island’s demand more efficiently.

 

Lee Mark Chang

“I noh tell nobody, but I wanted a soft opening. I got bomb-rushed. Good bomb-rush, it’s a good thing, good problem to have. But like every business, when we first started, there’s some tweaking we need to do. My apologies, first and foremost. We will get better, but it’s just the first couple of days that we’re tweaking whatever we need to tweak. And we getting used to whatever we need to get used to first and then eventually we’ll be good.”

 

The opening-day rush revealed problems the restaurant must now fix, but the crowd also confirmed something Chon Saan already suspected: San Pedro’s appetite for the brand was strong enough to sustain more than deliveries from Belize City. For island customers, a favorite meal no longer needs to board a plane before reaching the dinner table. The long trip, and the long wait for a local Chon Saan, are finally over. Shane Williams for News Five.

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

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