California is now home to America's largest dim sum restaurant

"My parents had a 600-person wedding banquet at the former Empress of China in the late 1970s. For decades, my family association (mutual aid societies based on clans) had annual dinners at New Asia with up to 1,000 guests. However, these massive halls have been disappearing for several reasons: the retirement of owners, the astronomical costs of maintaining large spaces and the city's Chinese population moving to the suburbs."

"This leaves Far East Cafe as the last big banquet hall in Chinatown, with 680 seats across two floors and 15,000 square feet. Other old banquet halls like Empress of China, Four Seas and Gold Mountain have been replaced by trendier Chinese restaurants that are making their own mark on the dining scene, but their capacities are smaller. In their places, suburban Bay Area restaurants have swooped in as a viable option: The original Koi Palace in Daly City and the former Hong Kong Flower Lounge in Millbrae bet on the Chinese and Asian suburban demographic shift when they opened in the '90s, with 400- and 550-person capacities, respectively."

"In October, Bay Area Cantonese chain HL Peninsula debuted a 28,000-square-foot palace of a restaurant in Castro Valley, the census-designated place of 66,000 residents in Alameda County. With its capacity for 800 people - that includes the central dining room and 10 private dining rooms - it is being hailed as the largest Cantonese restaurant and dim sum parlor in the U.S."

San Francisco's large Chinese banquet halls have dwindled as owners retire, maintenance costs rise and Chinese residents move to suburbs. Families once held hundreds- to thousand-person events at venues such as the Empress of China and New Asia. Far East Cafe remains the last big Chinatown hall with 680 seats across two floors and 15,000 square feet. Trendier, smaller restaurants have replaced several older halls. Suburban Bay Area restaurants such as Koi Palace in Daly City and Hong Kong Flower Lounge in Millbrae opened in the 1990s with 400- and 550-person capacities. HL Peninsula opened a 28,000-square-foot, 800-person Cantonese restaurant in Castro Valley amid a growing Asian population.

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