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RADNOR — Restaurateur Margaret Kuo will soon serve her final meals at Margaret Kuo’s Wayne.
After dominating the culinary scene along the Main Line for over 20 years, the upscale Asian restaurant that won its owner praise and awards for over two decades, will close on March 18.
Her patrons will still be able to get Kuo’s same authentic traditional Chinese menu a few blocks away at Margaret Kuo’s inside the Lancaster County Farmers Market, 389 W. Lancaster Ave., Wayne, and a few miles away at Margaret Kuo’s Kitchen at The Promenade at Granite Run, 1109 Baltimore Pike, Middletown Township.
The award-winning Margaret Kuo’s Wayne at 175 Lancaster Ave. drew customers from near and far, and received accolades for its warm hospitality and its authentic Chinese and Japanese menu served in beautiful dining areas, embellished with hand-chosen artwork and cultural artifacts.
The Kuo restaurants in Middletown, Wayne, Malvern and Media are thought to be the first in the Philadelphia suburbs sharing authentic Asian food as well as culture.
“It took us almost three years to build the restaurant here,” Kuo said, as she looked around her namesake Wayne restaurant fondly, with her husband Warren at her side. “We built it from the ground up. Right after we purchased this site, and began with our plans, 9/11 happened and there was a ban on all trucking. We had to wait until the ban lifted before construction could begin.”
Its beginnings
Kuo said they purchased the site of the former Wayne Diner in early 2001.
Rather than demolishing the piece of history, the Kuos donated the diner, a piece of Americana, to the American Diner Museum in Providence, Rhode Island. The American Diner Museum’s mission is to save vintage diners in danger of redevelopment and extinction. The Kuos believe the diner now stands on a site in Buffalo, New York.
“I remember the day that the diner was moved from this site,” Kuo reminisced, smiling. “Some residents around here say that was the biggest event that happened in Wayne since General Wayne himself came through.”
The Kuos worked with architect Bob Linn to design the building and hired JD DeLuca as builder. The 270-seat, three-level Margaret Kuo’s Wayne, with its signature Han Dynasty dragons adorning the building’s facade, opened with much fanfare on March 1, 2003.
“Over 500 people came here on opening day,” Kuo remembers. “And the people just kept on coming.”
“Margaret and I have put our hearts into this place,” Warren added. “When we bought the property, we wanted to build something unique that would last and we worked hard to make it someplace really special.”
The upscale Asian restaurant served authentic Chinese cuisine on its first floor and authentic Japanese cuisine and a sushi bar on its second floor, with private dining areas and banquet space on the second floor as well as the lower level. Bars are on the first and second floors.
What’s next?
Kuo sold the Wayne location to the WIN Signature Restaurant Group, the owners of independent restaurants, based in the Main Line area. WIN, in operation for over 30 years, owns Azie on Main in Villanova, Azie Media, The Blue Elephant in Pottstown and Wayne, Teikoku Restaurant in Newtown Square and Mikado Thai Pepper in Ardmore.
After just selling two of their restaurants in recent years, the Kuos said they weren’t actively looking to sell Margaret Kuo’s Wayne.
However, when the opportunity presented itself, the couple felt the timing was right to go in another direction. During the pandemic, the Kuos sold Margaret Kuo’s on State Street in Media in 2020, and Mandarin in Malvern in 2021.
“The WIN group approached me about selling Margaret Kuo’s Wayne, and to be honest, I just felt the timing was right,” Margaret Kuo shared. “My husband is 81. After we sell this Wayne location, we will only own Margaret Kuo’s Kitchen at Granite Run and our place at the farmers market, so I can get back to being more hands-on with sharing my cooking skills with the community, like I did in the beginning, and follow other pursuits I’ve putting off. I feel really good about the buyers. They operate nice restaurants. They’re from a younger generation and I just feel like we’re leaving this place in good hands.”
The Kuo’s son, Mark Kuo, former owner/operator of Mandarin and an experienced restaurateur like his mother, is now at the helm of Margaret Kuo’s Kitchen at Granite Run. When the former Granite Run Mall was demolished in 2016, and reinvented as the Promenade at Granite Run in 2018, Mark and his parents closed Peking and opened as Margaret Kuo’s Kitchen in a much larger, more spacious and upscale location there.
With her “family affair” restaurants now in capable hands with her son Mark, Kuo said she will spend three days a week at the Lancaster County Farmers Market, serving customers and, hopefully, doing cooking demonstrations. She also plans to enhance the menu at Margaret Kuo’s Kitchen with more traditional Chinese dishes.
In the future, she looks forward to teaching cooking classes and holding workshops, mingling more with her customers at both locations, and doing more community service.
Kuo says she is excited to spend more time with her family, which includes her two sons and three grandchildren, and friends, and perhaps finally get some time to write the book that she has long dreamed of publishing, about her experiences with her customers, her cooking and culture.
She already has a cooking workshop planned at Wayne Senior Center in April and is participating in The Emergency Aid Foundation of Pennsylvania’s Taste of the Main Line event in Radnor this Thursday.
“Without so many of the administrative duties, I will be able to get back to the kitchen and back to the people, as I did in the beginning,” the restaurateur shared. “When I think about it, this is really a happy occasion. I feel as if I’m coming full circle. I am, by no means retiring, but I just wanted to scale down a little and get back to hands-on operating and more involvement in the community, like I did in the beginning of my career.”
Humble start 50 years ago
“The beginning” for Margaret Kuo was 1974, when she opened Peking in the Granite Run Mall, the first location of her soon-to-be restaurant empire.
She learned to cook from her mother and grandmother and wanted to share recipes handed down from generation to generation. The Kuos, natives of Taiwan, took a risk by bringing authentic Mandarin and Szechuan cooking to Delaware County. The food critics and customers were smitten with this new genre of food being introduced to them.
They were also enthralled with eating Chinese food in an elegant, sit-down restaurant with linen tablecloths, rather than a corner-store-type establishment offering Chinese takeout, as was customary in the suburbs of the ’60s and early ’70s.
The creative chef/owner framed her very first review by then-food critic Elaine Tait of The Philadelphia Inquirer, who came to the restaurant in disguise, Kuo said, so they did not recognize her.
“After we were discovered by Elaine Tait and other area food critics, we seemed to really take off,” Kuo shared. “Only one year or so after our opening, we were awarded Best Asian Restaurant by Philadelphia Magazine’s Best of Philly promotion.”
Building on her success with Peking, 10 years later, the entrepreneur/restauranteur opened Mandarin, and continued garnering awards and culinary accolades.
In 1992, Kuo opened a third restaurant, Margaret Kuo’s on State Street in Media, right at the forefront of Media’s restaurant renaissance, followed by the opening of Margaret Kuo’s Wayne in 2003 and her outpost in the Lancaster County Farmers Market in 2015.
Throughout it all, Margaret, a James Beard Foundation featured chef, made culinary history.
“I’ve always treated inviting customers to my restaurants, the same as if I invited them to my own home,” shared the grande dame of Asian cuisine. “I want them to enjoy themselves, feel welcome and be treated well.”
Kuo, who usually splits her time between her restaurants, says that she will try to be at the Wayne restaurant to interact with her customers every day until it closes.
As Kuo was being interviewed, restaurant patrons continually stopped by her table to express their sentiments about the Wayne closing.
Joe and Diane Micciche of Warminster say they discovered Kuo’s restaurants when they lived in Drexel Hill and then Lansdowne in Delaware County. Now residents of Bucks County, they travel to Margaret Kuo’s Wayne at least four times a year because they enjoy her food so much.
“We saw the news about the closing of her Wayne location, so we had to come down,” Joe remarked. “We both love her Peking Duck. It’s our favorite!”
“Along with her General Tso’s Chicken, spring rolls, and dumplings, all the food here is fabulous,” added Diane, who said they may come back on Saturday for yet another last meal, and will definitely not have any problem trekking a few miles farther to the Granite Run location in the future.
Also stopping by the table to share their best wishes were Philadelphia residents Sean Edwards, accompanied by his wife, Kelly, and mom, Mary. They heard about the restaurant’s final days on a local news broadcast and hopped in the car for an early dinner Saturday.
“I’m depressed that this is my first time here and I didn’t discover it sooner,” shared Sean, president of Rittenhouse Communications Group in Philadelphia, as he shook Kuo’s hand, introduced himself, and wished her well. “We were very impressed by the food and everything else. Now we can’t wait to go to Margaret Kuo’s at Granite Run.”
“People have been coming in for their final meal here ever since we made the announcement about closing this location,” Kuo shared, explaining her patrons are like one big family. “When they say goodbye, I tell them it’s not a final goodbye and invite them to come see me at Margaret Kuo’s Kitchen at Granite Run or over at the Farmers Market down the street.”
The final sale
After Margaret Kuo’s Wayne closes on March 18, the doors of the restaurant will remain open for the public to purchase some of the restaurant’s inventory and Kuo memorabilia from March 19 until contents are depleted before March 31, when the Kuos will vacate the building.
With the exception of tables and chairs and other practical items going to the property’s buyers, most of the decorative items will be for sale on a first-come basis.
In the 1980s and ’90s, Warren Kuo was an importer/buyer for the Pearl of the East stores. He brought back exotic items from the Far East, some of which decorate the restaurant’s three levels.
Filled with original sculptures, cultural artifacts, unique decorative wall hangings, paintings, rosewood and antique furniture, wooden figurines, silk screen room dividers, Chinese vases and other items, the rooms of the restaurant will have priced inventory. The Kuos say they are also willing to consider reasonable offers for items on an individual basis.
“We decorated in the pre-Amazon days,” Margaret Kuo remarked. “We’ve been collecting Chinese art for many years. Most of our items are handcrafted and imported from China and Japan.”
Although she appears excited to close this chapter of her life and move onto a new one, Kuo said, without a doubt, there is also a tinge of sadness.
“I have mixed emotions,” she shared. “I am happy for my family and for the opportunities this will give me to spend more time with the community. But, I am also sad, because we built this restaurant from the ground up, and fixed every corner with love. The new owners promised to take good care of the building, so that made me feel peace. Time and life changes, so I feel it’s time to go in a new direction. I want to thank all of our customers who came and dined here. I am so grateful for all of their support and hope they’ll come visit us at our other locations.”
What to know
The public can come into Margaret Kuo’s Wayne at 175 Lancaster Ave. to purchase the restaurant’s inventory and Kuo memorabilia starting March 19.
To reach Margaret Kuo’s Kitchen at the Promenade at Granite Run, 1109 W. Baltimore Pike, Media, call 610-891-8880 or visit http://www.margaretkuoskitchen.com.
For more information about Margaret Kuo’s at the Lancaster County Farmers Market, open Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, visit https://www.lancastercountyfarmersmarket.com/blog/vendors/margaret-kuos.
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