Mission Chinese’s Rollercoaster Ride in NYC Is Coming to an End

After a whirlwind decade, Mission Chinese is fully exiting New York. The restaurant’s last remaining NYC location in Bushwick will be shutting down by the end of July, according to a post on its website. Grub Street first reported the news.

The last two years have been “astoundingly challenging” for the restaurant, the closure announcement reads. “After rebuilding our foundations and trying our best to not just survive but thrive, we are faced with the difficult decision to close our beloved Bushwick location at the end of July.”

Mission’s Bushwick spot, the sequel to the now-closed Mission Chinese on the Lower East Side, was a critically acclaimed addition to chef Danny Bowien’s boundary-pushing canon of genre-bending, Asian-inflected fare. Diners could order kung pao pastrami and Shanghainese rice cakes with bacon — all served up in flashy, psychedelic environs. The restaurant, which first opened in 2018, shared its industrial space with music venue Elsewhere.

Bowien brought Mission Chinese to New York in 2012 to immediate praise, and the success followed him to the East Broadway location on the Lower East Side in 2014, and on to the Bushwick location. However, during Mission Chinese’s tenure in New York, the restaurant group came under fire repeatedly as employees alleged a range of misconduct under the leadership of Bowien and former executive chef Angela Dimayuga at the former Lower East Side location, including racial discrimination and physical and verbal abuse. Mission Chinese is now down to its sole remaining location in San Francisco, where it first opened in 2010.

In Bushwick, Mission will close out its last week with a set menu of dishes derived from Bowien’s forthcoming vegan cookbook, Mission Vegan, according to the closure post on the website. Its last day of service is July 23.