Mandarin Ogilvie restaurant, an immigrant family's triumph, to close in June, ending its 36-year run
The 36-year-old restaurant in Ottawa's east end, has served dim to not just countless regulars but also a few prime ministers
Peter Hum, Ottawa Citizen
Published Apr 09, 2024 • Last updated 25 minutes ago • 4 minute read
Soon after the Mandarin Ogilvie opened for lunch Monday, the restaurant’s longtime manager, Johnny Hsieh, was breaking the bad news to customers.
Further to a written message taped to the eatery’s front door, Hsieh explained that, after 36 years in business, the Ogilvie Road restaurant is to close June 3.
“Your patronage and loyalty have been the driving force behind our success,” says the note. “We are immensely grateful and truly honoured to have been part of your lives.”
While the note doesn’t disclose it, the reason for the closure is that the restaurant’s plaza, which Hsieh’s family owns, is to be sold and developed into a 20-storey, mixed-use building that will offer more than 300 residential units. The building is to provide “an elevated living experience for young professionals,” says an online notice for the TCU Development Corp. project.
But Hsieh, a 69-year-old who has worked at his family’s restaurant since it opened, is not looking forward to retiring.
“I feel very bad,” he said, tapping his hand against his heart. “I like to stay more, a couple of years, but my family say, ‘No.’ ”
The Mandarin Ogilvie is the latest much-loved old-school Chinese restaurant to call it quits in Ottawa after decades serving innumerable customers. In December, the Won Ton House on Wellington Street West, which was owned and operated by the Tang family for 67 years, closed. Last month, the Yangtze Restaurant, a four-decades-old Chinatown landmark owned and operated by the Ng family, was put up for sale for $3.3 million.
The Mandarin Ogilvie’s success was the culmination of an immigrant family’s saga that involved various members leaving Taiwan, and then Paris in some cases, to come to Ottawa.
“It’s my father’s legacy,” says Nathalie Shienh, who is Hsieh’s niece and who takes care of the Mandarin’s administrative work.
Her father, who died in 2018, was Jor-Chaur Shienh, the Mandarin Ogilvie’s owner. Shienh, who was born in Cambodia, lived in Taiwan and then Paris, where his daughter, now 41, was born. In Paris, Shienh for a time ran a restaurant — the Mandarin Provence.
Shienh moved from Paris to Ottawa in 1987 and the following year he opened the Mandarin Ogilvie, near where he and his family lived. It was originally a small, narrow, strip-mall restaurant of just a few tables. But Shienh was able to expand his restaurant after neighbouring businesses closed, and the Mandarin Ogilvie grew to become a restaurant that could hold more than 250 people in multiple rooms. Among its clientele were not only generations of regulars but also politicians, dignitaries and the Chinese community for banquets and other large gatherings.
Louise Rachlis, a fan of the Mandarin Ogilvie, says the restaurant earned her repeat business above all with its hospitality.
“It was nice to walk in and be led to the booth we like and be asked if our son would be joining us. It’s personal,” she says. “Mandarin Ogilvie and many other comfort-food Chinese restaurants will be missed.”
Shienh eventually bought the entire mall and renamed it the Mandarin Plaza. Now, it includes just the restaurant and the Win Tai Market, a large Asian grocery store where Shienh’s widow, Tak-Suk Shienh, 76, still works. Nathalie Shienh says members of her extended family over three generations were among the cooks, servers, cashiers and grocery-store staff at her family’s businesses.
Not only did the Shienh family own the Mandarin Ogilvie. Not long after their first restaurant opened, they followed up by opening the similarly large Palais Imperial on Dalhousie Street. Both restaurants made names for themselves as popular spots for dim sum in Ottawa. The Shienh family sold Palais Imperial in 2021. That restaurant closed, and the space has become the Vietnamese eatery Parle by Viet Fresh.
Shienh’s daughter says her family’s story shows “there’s great possibilities that can happen when you work really hard.”
Her father, she says, “worked every day and he was happy to do it. There was nothing that he loved more.”
The COVID-19 pandemic was hard on the Mandarin Ogilvie, as it was with all restaurants. Before the pandemic, it had more than 30 people on staff. Now, staffing is about half that. Customers have returned, Nathalie Shienh says, although its signature cart service for dim sum has been discontinued in favour of à la carte service. Not only does this cut down on food waste, it also results in better, fresher dim sum.
“All fresh, not frozen,” says Johnny Hsieh.
He’s obviously proud of what the Mandarin Ogilvie grew to become in Ottawa. Near its entrance is a large showcase teeming with framed photos of politicians and dignitaries posing with staff. Justin Trudeau, Paul Martin, Jean Chrétien, Adrienne Clarkson, Jack Layton and Jim Watson are some of the VIPs seen in the photos.
Nathalie Shienh says she had thought about taking over the restaurant. But she has two young daughters and she will seek a job that affords her a better work-life balance.
“I’m very blessed that I was part of all of this,” she says. “It’s just time to say goodbye.”
Her uncle, manager Johnny Hsieh, says he doesn’t know what his life will be like after the Mandarin Ogilvie closes. He does know that he will be working June 2, the last service at the Mandarin Ogilvie, as regular customers are already making reservations.
“They say they want to come for the last lunch, dim sum,” Hsieh says.
phum@postmedia.com
https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local...ts-36-year-run
Note that the RLAification has already begun. Balconies? What balconies? 
Linear Mode
