College Park community members celebrated the grand opening of Chinese restaurant Li Chun Café on Saturday.
Located in College Park City Hall Plaza, the fast casual restaurant serves Chinese cuisine including cucumber salad, fried rice, tea smoked chicken and bing — a Chinese flatbread used for wraps.
“Everywhere you can find Shake Shack, Cava, &pizza, but you can’t find Li Chun Café,” Xue Ling, the restaurant’s brand manager said. “We serve authentic Chinese food.”
Li Chun Café is run by the same owners as Northwest Chinese, a restaurant on Route 1 that won College Park’s Business of the Year in 2024. Terrapin Development Company — a real estate developer in College Park — is “thrilled” to bring another restaurant with these owners to the city, company president Ken Ulman told The Diamondback.
Since Northwest Chinese is located in a center slated for redevelopment, Ulman said the owners were looking to open up a new business to make sure that they can stay in College Park, which he was happy to help them do.
“It’s just really important for us to help local businesses, in this case a local restaurant, stay in College Park and thrive,” Ulman said.
At this time, there is no clear timeline or plan to close or relocate Northwest Chinese, and the next steps are uncertain, according to Ling.
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Will Horton, a former employee of Northwest Chinese, served as host of the opening ceremony, which featured a traditional Chinese dance performance and a statement from College Park Mayor Fazlul Kabir.
“You know there's a bunch of good chains here, but we need more locally-owned restaurants,” Horton said. “They make a big impact on the community, and I'm sure they're going to attract a lot of customers.”
As part of the grand opening, the restaurant also offered free samples of food, which attracted many University of Maryland students to the event.
Arther You, a sophomore computer science and music education major, said College Park lacks good Asian cuisine and that Li Chun Café “brings that to the table.” He also appreciated the aesthetic and atmosphere of the restaurant.
It’s very unique, in the sense of its aesthetic, the kind of vibe it gets,” You said. “It’s a really unique, chill [vibe] but also good food.”
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Brian Wei, a Chinese student at this university, said the food reminds him of home, and that he appreciates the addition of a new Chinese spot in the area.
“I think it brings a lot of Chinese culture, like Chinese snacking culture to the community,” Wei said. “It’s definitely something different, I’m really glad it’s here.”
Michael Williams, the city’s economic development director, told The Diamondback that bringing Li Chun Café into College Park City Hall Plaza adds diversity to the food scene in the area.
“The offerings are totally different, totally different vibe,” Williams said. “Whatever your persuasions are in terms of your taste, you're probably not going to go wrong with dealing with Li Chun and seeing what's on their menu.”
