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Aloha, La Jolla!
A trip to Mandarin House is transportive.
Sitting in a crescent-shaped booth, with a bevy of colorful Chinese lanterns shimmering overhead, feels like stepping back to 1977, when the beloved Windansea restaurant opened its doors to the community.
On a recent Date Night visit, my husband and I joined our friends, Mary Kay and Jim, at a four top in a cozy corner of the restaurant’s dining room. Booths and tables brimmed with happy, hungry locals of all ages: a girls’ night out gathering bookended a shindig of salty watermen; a young couple balanced a bouncing toddler on their laps, while tucking into a platter of the restaurant’s famous Kung Pao Chicken; an older couple took in the happy view, while sipping their Volcano cocktails nearby.
This alchemy of community has sustained Mandarin House for nearly 50 years. Loyal customers return for the restaurant’s delicious, tried-and-true cuisine, outstanding customer service and charming ambiance. But it’s the warm embrace of family greeting guests when they walk through the restaurant’s intricately carved, mahogany front doors that inspires the Law family’s culinary legacy.
The Mandarin House is a quintessential La Jolla Legacy Family Business. Forged in friendship by founders Tat “John” Law, Jerry Chang and Wai Choi “Bill” Man, the restaurant is owned and operated today by John Law’s son, Nelson. His passion is preserving the traditional cooking techniques, original recipes and convivial hospitality for which Mandarin House is known.
Meet Nelson and learn about his adventures, as a second-generation Windansea restauranter, in this week’s La Jolla Legacy Family Business interview.
LJVN: What are the values that inspire Mandarin House’s legacy?
NL:We’re about doing things the old school way by keeping tradition alive in the kitchen. Our sauces are still the original recipes, and our appetizers are handmade. We use whole fresh vegetables and cut all our meats and veggies in house. So that’s one part. The other part is being part of this wonderful community. Every single day, I have customers share their decades-long relationship with this restaurant. Many of them have been coming since before I was even born. I used to think that this was just my family’s place. But now I understand that it’s much bigger than that. It belongs to all of us.
LJVN: Tell me about your employees. From my perspective, as a guest, it’s lovely to see the same smiling faces greet my husband and me when we visit.
NL: We have a small and tight crew. Many of our servers have been here for years. Janyne has been a server for maybe 20 years and is everyone’s favorite. She’s like the mom. She remembers birthdays with special cakes. We love her.
LJVN: What are the opportunities and challenges you’ve experienced since taking the reins of your family business?
NL:In 2019, we had a fire and then a restaurant remodel. That was a huge hurdle that we were able to make our way through. I think learning to put my own stamp on it all and learning to make decisions based on my gut, and hoping the community responds well (instead of pandering to what I think people would like) was a real turning point for me. As a solo owner, I make many decisions alone and learning to live and die with them has been a big growing point for me. I’m not a very public person, but I’m running a very public business. It feels like I’m constantly sitting outside in only my underwear, getting judged by any and everybody with an opinion.
LJVN: What are the changes that you’ve implemented to ensure Mandarin House’s continued success as a valued La Jolla legacy family business?
NL:From a business operations side, I had to navigate how to go from old school and aging chefs and uncles doing everything on paper and pencil, to bringing in technology and computers and some new younger and more vibrant staff to help me carry on the torch. That transition happened over years, one day at a time, not overnight. Additionally, I think learning and adapting to some of our ever-changing customer needs and finding out where that line is for us. For example, we have many gluten-free items on the menu, and they’re listed. But we can’t make everything gluten-free without significantly altering the recipes, so we don’t.
LJVN: What do you value most about managing a family business in our community?
NL: The people and relationships I’ve built with customers and staff over the years. I always say that in this little pocket of Windansea, we have the best customers in the world. Everybody is so nice and I’m really honored to be your friend and your neighbor. Also, I love our location. It’s pretty prime to be able to head down to the beach in five minutes!
LJVN: As owner and manager, what is your most memorable Mandarin House customer service story?
NL: Gosh, we have so many. So many connections. But I think for me, it’s the first Mandarin House Chinese New Year party and cancer research fundraiser that I threw in 2017 to honor my dad. It was the first Chinese New Year since his passing, so I threw a fundraising event in his honor. I had never done that before, but we had a great turn out! We received a lot of community support, and it was just a very special night. It was a moment for me when I really started to feel like I could really do this and that we had the support of so many people.
Molly Bowman-Styles
La Jolla Village News newsletter host
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