When news got out the Mee Sing restaurant in Lyneham was closing down people came from far and wide to get one last meal.
During the week beforehand one woman from Bathurst, in regional NSW, ordered $700 of takeaway intending to fill the new freezer she bought especially for the occasion.
Another woman rang on the afternoon of the final service to order takeaway, and then drove up from Moruya on the South Coast to pick it up.
Loyal customers from all over Canberra, some who had been coming to the restaurant since it opened in 1965, sat alongside friends of the Ching family, who had run the suburban restaurant for close to 58 years.
"We couldn't have asked for a better final night," says Helen Ching.
"It's always been about family for us, and the customers, and this whole Lyneham community has become our family."
Helen's parents, Peter and Briggita, opened Mee Sing in 1965, the year they got married. Peter fled communist China with his family and grew up in Hong Kong. Many of Peter's friends were moving to Australia, but the young retail worker couldn't afford it. One day in 1961 he won the bingo jackpot, bought a ticket to Australia and arrived in Sydney with $20 in his pocket. Briggita's family came from Lithuania, and the unlikely pair met while working in a restaurant.
When the small corner restaurant became available they jumped at the opportunity. The family has never owned the space, but faithfully paid rent all those years.
Down one side of the building is a mural of Helen's younger sister Sharon, who tragically passed away from a rare form of cancer in 2019. She had just turned 50.
"Everyone loved Sharon," says Helen.
"She was the girl you had at every party, she was the Pied Piper of people.
"But she hated that wall, it was always covered in posters and just looked awful."
Sharon struck up a friendship with graffiti artist Eddie Mowat who asked if he could paint on the wall and when she died Eddie asked the family if he could paint a portrait of Sharon.
"Eddie came in the other day and told us he'd just gotten a really big job with one of the hotels, he's become quite renowned in the street art world, and he said, 'Sharon is still looking after me'."
Helen says the past few years wouldn't have been possible without Sharon's husband Aristo Au, who's been the mainstay in the kitchen for 20 years.
"We're forever thankful that Sharon married Aristo," she says. "We just wouldn't have been able to do it without him."
They've decided to call it quits for a variety of reasons.
"COVID hit us pretty hard," says Helen.
"We probably should have gone then, but you feel indebted to the customers who supported us through those years, coming in to buy takeaway.
"We all have day jobs, we come in after work and open for dinner and there's that constant day in, day out of it all. It's a hard life.
"We all want to spend some more time with family too, Aristo's daughter is 16 now, he wants to see her grow up. We've all chipped in and bought a boat, so we're literally going fishing."
Want more recipe ideas? We've got a tasty offering that'll leave you satisfied. Enjoy it here. Bookmark the page so you've got a wide selection at your fingertips next time you're hitting the kitchen.
