Marcia Pledger: How Dennis Chan's family legacy helped drive success of Blue Bamboo

When Dennis Chan accepted awards recently as Small Business Person of the Year for both North Florida and the state, he couldn’t help but think about his family’s legacy in Jacksonville.

It’s a strong legacy spanning three generations. For more than 70 years, Chan’s family has owned and operated restaurants in Jacksonville. That includes 13 restaurants, including two of the family's best-known restaurants: Little Dragon on North Main Street and Eng’s Golden Dragon on Beach Boulevard. And it includes Blue Bamboo Canton Bistro, which Chan — a graduate of the prestigious Culinary Institute of America — started in 2005 on Southside Boulevard.

“It would have been so much easier if I joined one of the two restaurants that my family still owned when I returned to Jacksonville, but I wanted to start my own restaurant,” said Chan, 50, whose family opened their first restaurant in Jacksonville in the 1940s.

Award-winning chef: Blue Bamboo Canton Bistro Chef Dennis Chan named Small Business Person of the Year for Florida

Dream restaurant: Chef Dennis Chan opening Blue Bamboo Canton Bistro in Mandarin

In early May, Chan and the other state winners were honored as part of a summit celebrating National Small Business Week, where he received his honors. In a packed room of about 300 people at the University of North Florida, the first thing Chan did was thank everyone at his table at the event, including his banker and realtor, to those people who weren’t able to be there, including employees who stuck by him in the last couple of years.

Even though he’s been in business for 17 years, the last two years have tested him like never before. But his situation was different than many: He was in the middle of a major construction project when the pandemic first hit.

A year before COVID-19, Chan committed to building a new location in Mandarin that seats 208 people, nearly triple the size of the original location. He was in the midst of transforming a former lawyer's office into his new restaurant when he had to close his original location unexpectedly for a while because of the pandemic.

Chan recalls his banker questioning their investment decision to build at all or to continue the project. He responded jokingly that if it didn’t work out, “I guess you’ll be owning a restaurant,” Chan said in an interview following the awards ceremony. “He didn’t think it was funny.”

Passion is critical in challenging times

Chan's passion for cooking Cantonese food began when he was just 5 years old. He would stand on a stool to watch his grandfather, Wing, cook meals at Eng's Golden Dragon. Throughout the years, while growing up on the Southside, he spent a lot of time after school in several restaurants owned by both of his parents, two different uncles, and cousins.

These days, his four chefs not only create Cantonese comfort food but also offer modern interpretations of some of their favorite meals. The restaurant has three party rooms for private dining, a bar, and a space to prepare catering.

"It's my dream restaurant because it's modern yet comfortable with a relaxing vibe," he said.

Blue Bamboo offers a big variety of options such as red curry shrimp and grits, lobster Cantonese, scallops with black bean sauce, sweet and sour whole fish, Hong Kong ribeye steak, jin du pork chops, salt and pepper pork chops, Yu Xiang eggplant, gailon with oyster sauce, and Qing Chao ginger yuchoy.

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Hustling during the COVID pandemic

The restaurant industry is hard even in good times. While many restaurants struggled during the pandemic, many diners sought comfort foods that they craved and enjoyed at their favorite restaurants.

In efforts to survive during the pandemic, Chan and his team did everything from hosting virtual cooking classes filmed at the restaurant, to creating meal kits for several months. Customers were able to pick them up at four different locations, including his restaurant.  Blue Bamboo restaurant employees also started doing their own home deliveries. The company even formed new partnerships with local farmers and caterers. For instance, they partnered with Atlantic Beach Urban Farms to make private label dressings and sauces.

Chan said his focus on building a new customer base at a new building was a big driving force to come up with innovative ways to bring in additional income during the early stages of the pandemic.

"We knew we had to do whatever it took to survive in order for us to move into that new building," he said.

The new location in Mandarin

Tina York, general manager at Blue Bamboo, met Chan about 20 years ago when she was a server and he was her manager at Brio Tuscan Grill in Orlando. She joined Blue Bamboo in October 2020, about three months before the new location opened.

“It was a very strange time to open a restaurant. But lucky for us, we had a lot of space so it made guests more comfortable. Initially, we had fewer tables and lots of space,” she said. “Even though it was not quite a year after the pandemic started we were able to make guests feel comfortable. That was our priority. We also used to focus a lot more on to-go business. We have a separate entrance and we bought food out to our customers."

York said she's worked in the restaurant industry since she was 15 and Blue Bamboo has been her favorite restaurant to work in. "It’s because of the opportunity to work with Dennis," she said. "He’s very guest-focused and that’s the reason I’m in this business. We both love participating in our customer’s special moments."

Moving forward

So much has changed in the last two years. In the last year alone, two weddings were hosted at the restaurant.

Huston Pullen, director of the Small business Development Center at UNF said he enjoyed honoring Chan.

"He’s the perfect example of true entrepreneurship and going from surviving to thriving," Pullen said. "His dedication is beyond admirable and his drive to continue to succeed is something that other entrepreneurs can learn from for years to come.”

While Chan enjoys interacting with other entrepreneurs and learning from them as well, he doesn't see himself as an example. He says, he simply just works hard to be a success.

"I've always felt like I had a legacy to continue, and I truly love the restaurant business because I've learned about it from a small age," Chan said. "I honestly feel privileged to do what I love in a community that I grew up in."

Marcia Pledger is the Opinion and Engagement Editor for the Florida Times-Union. She can be reached at mpledger@jacksonville.com.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Dennis Chan driven by family legacy in Jacksonville restaurants