Popular Eastwood restaurant site back on the market after passing in at auction
The home of one of Sydney’s most popular Chinese restaurants is on the market after the restaurant closed down suddenly after 14 years in business, and the owner retired.
The November 22 auction of the massive two-level site of the former much-loved King’s Seafood Restaurant in Eastwood, in Sydney’s north west, attracted a huge crowd before passing in.
The new selling agent David Lee, director of Leaders Estate Agents, said the restaurant was now back on the market for between $9 million and $10 million.
“It’s one of the best locations in Eastwood and there aren’t many locations of this size around,” he said.
“The restaurant had such a good reputation too, and 400 to 500 people would come to the area every weekend just to eat there. I used to go there myself at least four times a week for yum cha. I think I’ve spent thousands of dollars there over the years!”
The 772-square-metre building on 575 square metres of super-prime land is part of the popular pedestrianised Eastwood Plaza, and has a seating capacity of about 300 people.
The site has capacity to seat 300 patrons. Photo: Supplied
The Rowe Street premises are fully fitted out as a restaurant, with commercial-grade kitchens, tables and chairs and it’s ready to be picked up and go back into business immediately.
Alternatively, a developer could transform the site into apartments or boarding house accommodation, subject to council approval, the listing says.
It’s likely to be a popular site, close to other top retailers such as Westpac, the Commonwealth Bank – which once occupied the whole of the building – Flight Centre and Michel’s Patisserie.
In its day, King’s Seafood Restaurant attracted yum cha-lovers from all over Sydney, said local agent David Middleton of Anthony Trees First National, Eastwood. “Thousands of people used to travel a long, long way just to get a table there.”
“I think everyone was shocked when it shut so abruptly around three months ago. People loved it and its old-fashioned charm with the fish tanks, with fish and abalone, at the entrance, and so many tables on the ground floor and then more upstairs too.”
The auction attracted a big crowd. Photo: Facebook
Principal of the Anthony Trees agency, Tony Jasprizza, said the area, now a mecca for Asian food aficionados, had a huge number of places to eat – at least 70 restaurants, cafes and foodstalls at last count.
When a fruit shop at the nearby Eastwood Shopping Centre burned down in a massive multi-million-dollar blaze in 2011, it became the home of 12 food outlets instead, and the whole area has now become known for its Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and Singaporean restaurants.
“The suburb’s seen a massive transformation from when I came here in 1974 and it was a very middle-class suburb with just one Chinese restaurant,” Mr Jasprizza said.
“But there’s such a big demand for good food here.”
Eastwood, 17 kilometres north west of the Sydney CBD, is poised to undergo a huge amount of redevelopment. The Vantage apartment building was recently completed, and the Yuhu Group Australia has plans lodged for 400 apartments in seven towers from six to 13 storeys to be built over the renovated Eastwood Shopping Centre.
