Sometime this spring, Northern Health will begin occupying the space at Parkwood Place mall that’s been home to one of the city’s longest-standing Chinese buffet restaurants.
China Cup Buffet has been feeding hungry customers for 18 years at its downtown Prince George location at 121-1600 15th Ave., and there’s a good chance the restaurant will continue to do business.
“There is a possibility we might be relocating to a different location in Parkwood Mall and I think we might be getting close to the landlord and us making a decision - either we will relocate or be closing down, for now,” said Pong Cheung, one of the partner owner/operators of China Cup.
“We haven’t heard from the landlord (Bentall Green Oak Properties of Vancouver) yet. Pretty much at the end of this month or early next month we should have an answer and know if we will be relocating or not.”
The Citizen reached out Bentall Green Oak Properties for comment but has yet to receive a response.
Northern Health needs an alternate space to replace offices now occupied by the Northern Interior Health Unit adjacent to the hospital at 1444 Edmonton Street. That building is slated for demolition to allow for construction of the new $1.579 billion patient care tower at University Hospital of Northern BC.
The health authority will also be taking the second floor of the Hudson’s Bay department store at Parkwood Place at the same time. Both spaces will need extensive renovations to serve their Northern Health functions. Cheung said the landlord has told him and the other China Cup owners they will have to vacate the building in either May or June.
“They didn’t say when, for sure, but that’s what they’re planning to do,” said Cheung.
“Whether we’re moving or not we will be out of here in that time period, that’s what we’re hearing from the landlord.”
The future of the Bay store in Prince George is uncertain after the 345-year-old company (the oldest in Canada) announced March 8 it has filed for creditor protection. The company announced Friday it intends to begin liquidating stock.
According to Northern Health's plan, the China Cup site will house adult specialized services, including addictions treatment and overdose prevention services, with the remainder of services, including the vaccination clinic and other community health services, housed at the Bay site.
The two spaces will be renovated this year and adult community health services will be relocated from the Northern Interior Health Unit in the spring of 2026. Demolition of the Northern Interior Health Unit will follow in the summer of 2026 once the building is vacant, and construction of the new seven-story tower is slated to begin that fall.
Cheung is part of the ownership/management group that bought China Cup nearly four years ago and he’s also one of the chefs. Until then, it was operated as the China Cup under different owners, who took over the restaurant space a year or two after Mama Panda’s closed in 2002.
Cheung bought into the China Cup at a time when restaurants were reeling from the COVID pandemic. He said the federal government’s Canada Emergency Response Benefit that kept Canadian families and businesses solvent was a godsend.
“With the help of government we managed to survive,” he said. “Business picked up a little bit after COVID but again the economy wasn’t great and it not great right now either, but we’re trying our best to run things still.
“We do have a lot of regulars that come here, and a lot of people heard we are closing but they don’t know we might be relocating. They are actually looking for places for us, suggesting what location we can rent and start our business there. We do have some regulars and they like us.”
Cheung also wants to offer job protection for China Cup employees. That includes six who work in the kitchen and six who work in the dining room or are part of the cleaning/jantorial staff.
The China Cup is open for all-you-can-eat buffet service and takeout orders seven days a week from 11 a.m.-8:30 p.m.
