One of Durham’s oldest restaurants closed by tariffs and uncertainty, owner says
After three generations of owners and more than 30 years in business, one of the Triangle’s oldest Chinese restaurants closed last month in Durham.
Neo-China, a brand that once grew to four restaurants across the Triangle, closed it doors permanently on May 31, owner Jordan Wang said.
The closing was largely led by the challenges of an aging restaurant, Wang said, difficulties made worse by a teetering economy and rising tariffs on imported ingredients used to make Neo-China’s signature sauces.
“I wouldn’t say it was a difficult decision in the grand scheme, but it was difficult to have to reach that conclusion,” Wang said of closing. “This year, with the very uncertain economy, the path forward was going to be too much.”
Wang’s grandmother and father founded the business in 1990 and he grew up in the restaurant, first working at 12 years old.
Neo-China was a rare kind of Chinese restaurant in the Triangle when it first opened.
“It was quality food, made from scratch by hand to order,” Wang said. “The sauces reflect the complexity of the culture. The restaurant was built as a fine art gallery. It was built to shatter your idea of what a Chinese restaurant is, to give Chinese food the proper respect. And it worked.”
To eventually own and run the restaurant had been a 30-year dream, he said, one he trained for in culinary school and in professional kitchens.
When he took over Neo-China from his father about four years ago, COVID had changed the restaurant landscape. The restaurant needed repairs and new customers, but Wang thought it was doable.
“It was already kind of dated and in need of repairs and a lot of grit,” Wang said. “But when I decided to come back in and try to perpetuate the business, I felt like the landscape was navigable.”
Trade war and tariffs a ‘nail in the coffin’ for the restaurant
COVID had hurt Neo-China, but Wang said 2025 made continuing impossible.
“COVID was like a fight we had survived, but we were injured and it was hard to recover,” he said.
This year’s escalating trade war between the United States and China put an even greater strain on Neo-China’s bottom line.
Suddenly making the sauces and dishes Wang’s grandmother built the restaurant around was 145% more expensive. This month Reuters reported that “stacking tariffs” — new tariffs instituted on top of existing ones amid President Donald Trump’s trade war with China — can mean much higher tariffs for importers than sometimes reported in the media. Small businesses are being “crushed” by the tariffs, The Wall Street Journal reported in May.
“My grandmother was born in a palace, her family was very affluent and cultured,” Wang said. “After the Chinese Civil War, her family was obliterated. Only my grandmother and father made it out alive. They preserved that sense of culture and the deep, deep roots in the restaurant....
“The tariff situation was the nail in the coffin for me,” Wang said. “To make one sauce in the restaurant, we source ingredients specifically from certain manufacturers who have been doing it for centuries. There’s zero way you can give me an alternative that’s domestic.”
New restaurant to come: Hot Pot
Though the chapter for Neo-China is over, Wang is part of the new project taking over the restaurant space.
Wang said he was approached by the owners of Asia Pot, a Raleigh-based hot pot restaurant, to open a new location in Durham.
The kitchen and dining room will get the kind of renovation Wang always hoped for and he’ll stay on as an operating partner, fulfilling his dream in a way.
“A phoenix is dying, but a new chick will rise from the ashes,” Wang said.
Asia Pot is expected to be open by this fall.
This story was originally published June 18, 2025 at 5:15 AM with the headline "One of Durham’s oldest restaurants closed by tariffs and uncertainty, owner says."
