A Quintessential SF Chinatown Barbecue Shop Moves to the Tenderloin

For more than four decades, Hing Lung Company was one of the crown jewels of San Francisco Chinatown. The cramped, slightly dingy, old-school Cantonese butcher shop consistently cranked out some of the juiciest roast duck and crispiest-skinned siu yuk (roast pork belly) in town. Because the shop didn’t have any seating to speak of, popping open a takeout carton of its luscious, wonderfully fatty roast duck in your parked car, or huddled on the sidewalk, was one of those quintessential San Francisco dining experiences.

It was the end of an era, then, when Hing Lung shuttered its Stockton Street storefront last April, citing long, drawn-out rent negotiations with the landlord that fell through in the end.

The closure was especially bittersweet as it came right when brothers Eric and Simon Cheung were poised to bring the legacy business — which they took over from their father, Wing, a decade ago — to a new level of mainstream success. That same month, the Cheung brothers opened Go Duck Yourself, a swanky sit-down Chinese barbecue restaurant in Bernal Heights, to rave reviews. And if all goes according to plan, the newest addition to the brothers’ roast meats empire will open in the Tenderloin in the next couple of weeks: a casual deli-style barbecue counter called Quack House.

Just like the old Hing Lung, Quack House won’t have any dine-in seating and will focus exclusively on quick-service to-go items — barbecue rice plates, whole ducks and chickens, and other Cantonese-style roast meats and charcuterie sold by the pound.

Patricia Tien — Eric’s wife and a spokesperson for the business — acknowledges that it was sad to leave Chinatown behind. The Cheung brothers’ father passed away three years ago, and the Stockton Street storefront was really his legacy.

“We didn’t abandon you,” she says, addressing Hing Lung’s longtime customers directly. “We fought really hard to make Chinatown work.”

In the end, Tien says, the building was just in too poor physical condition to justify the rent the landlords were demanding. “Every time it rained outside, it would rain in our kitchen. It would drip down into the oil pot, and you would get burned,” she recalls. “We worked like that for five or six years.”

In many ways, though, Quack House will mark a return to those old Hing Lung roots. The new brick-lined Tenderloin location — former home of the upscale Meraki Market — will be more modern-looking than the Stockton Street butcher shop and will rely on tablet stations instead of having customers line up at the counter to order deli-style. But customers who complained that you couldn’t grab a quick, affordable meal for one person at the sit-down restaurant in Bernal Heights will be heartened by the return of those rice plates, which will be priced at $18–$20 for rice, greens and a quarter pound of meat.

Home cooks will also be able to buy a variety of Chinese cured sausages, Chinese bacon and pressed salted duck, just like they could in the old Hing Lung days. And there will be some more modern twists as well, including a pork jerky sandwich the chefs are working on.

The more central Tenderloin location will also allow Quack House to offer delivery service further into the Richmond and Sunset districts, where a lot of Hing Lung’s customers live. And of course it also won’t be too far away from Chinatown either.

Tien says that many of Hing Lung’s old customers have already trekked out to Bernal Heights to visit Go Duck Yourself at least once or twice. “When they come, we get two different reactions. One is that the prices are really high compared to what we had in Chinatown,” Tien says. “But we also have another reaction, which is, ‘Good for you guys.’ This kind of food should be praised more, and you should really promote this to the Western world.”

Tien says most of the old Chinatown customers wind up feeling happy with their Go Duck Yourself experience — happy, she says, that the restaurant didn’t “white down the food.”

For now, the Cheung brothers are retiring the Hing Lung name — in part to mark a new beginning, and also because there are so many other Chinese businesses called “Hing Lung” (meaning “prosperous”) in the Bay Area. But the new restaurant will be an homage to the original Hing Lung in many ways, including the (newly restored) original signage and a display of old photos.

The Cheungs also haven’t ruled out the possibility of opening a new shop in Chinatown at some point in the future. If they do? They might just have to roll out the Hing Lung name once again.

Quack House is located at 927 Post St. in San Francisco. The owners hope to open sometime in October 2025.