Vermont South: New eatery, offices planned for old Crown Palace restaurant

For decades, this Chinese restaurant was the place to go for banquets, Yum Cha and for Sunday night takeaways. See what its future looks like.

An artist's impression of the redevelopment of 495 Burwood Highway in Vermont South, the former home of a longstanding Chinese restaurant. Picture: Extract from planning documents.

An iconic Chinese restaurant that was an eastern suburbs hit for its banquets and Yum Cha could make way for a multi-level office building.

Public consultation is open for a proposed $1.6m revamp of the former Crown Palace restaurant at 495 Burwood Highway, opposite Vermont South Shopping Centre.

Applicants Huang Super want to knock down the single-storey restaurant — known at various stages as Bo On and Han Palace — and replace it with a three-storey building, containing a new restaurant on the ground level and two levels of office space above it.

It is also seeking a reduction in carparking requirements, proposing room for 13 car spots and 23 bike parking spots underground.

A $1.6m redevelopment is planned at the site of a longstanding Chinese restaurant next to Vermont South Shopping Centre. Picture: Screenshot from planning documents.

A town planning report stated the applicants wanted to provide the high amount of bike spots, 10 more than the allocation for cars, to encourage those in the building to ride to work.

The restaurant, formerly known as Han Palace and Bow On, has stood for more than 30 years and is notable for its pink exterior and shiny ‘Yum Cha Daily’ signs.

It closed for good in mid-2021 with a ‘for lease’ sign appearing near its front entrance.

Local shoppers and traders mostly welcomed the plans to overhaul the site, which is opposite the shopping centre’s abandoned Westpac branch and ATM, which closed in December.

Vermont South’s Linda Hamilton supported an overhaul, saying the abandoned restaurant looked “ugly” and the choice of offices above a new restaurant was “better than apartments”.

“I hope they do up the carpark while they’re at it, it’s like driving in the Grand Canyon,” she said.

Fellow shopper Margaret Baird felt the offices were not necessary but supported a new restaurant at the site.

Carmel Ruda, manager of hairdresser Harrison Steele, said the centre’s traders had suffered badly due to Covid-19 and the proposal was “a good idea”.

“It will bring more people into the shopping centre, Covid has really impacted trade and we need new customers to the area,” she said.

Whitehorse Council director of city development Jeff Green said no objections had been received so far for the proposed project, and a decision was likely to be made in May.