COCOA BEACH, Fla. – Yen Yen Chinese Restaurant, a mainstay in downtown Cocoa Beach for more than 28 years, will serve its last plate of Snow White Prawns on March 22, News 6 partner Floriday Today reported.
"My partners, they want to retire," said Tely Tse, who opened Yen Yen in a former British restaurant in 1992. "They're working too hard."
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Tse said they couldn’t find anyone who was reliable and trustworthy enough to take over.
The restaurant, located at the busy corner of Minutemen Causeway and Atlantic Avenue, is for sale and is under contract, Tse said. He couldn't elaborate on who the buyer is or what plans are for the building, which has a much coveted Cocoa Beach asset: parking.
Tse opened Tely's Chinese Restaurant in Suntree in 2016. His nephew and his wife, Michael and Jessie Lee, have been running Yen Yen. They've been with Tse since he opened the original Yen Yen in Brooklyn 30 years ago.
The 150-seat Yen Yen stayed busy, Tse said.
“It’s not closing because of slow business,” he said. “It did very well over there.”
Tse opened Tely's with a menu that's completely different from Yen Yen's. He wanted each restaurant to have its own identity. Though he has no immediate plans to change the Tely's menu now, he said if guests want a Yen Yen favorite, the Tely's staff will make it.
That includes those addictive Snow White Prawns, which are butterflied, quick-fried, then tossed in a decadent cream sauce; and Shelly’s Chicken, crispy strips of chicken stirred in a pungent sweet sauce.
For now, he's concentrating on the future of Tely's. The 70-seat restaurant in the Promenade Shoppes of Suntree Plaza will be moving one unit to the south, probably in early June, to make room for a new Aldi grocery.
"Right now, we will continue operating here until ready for the move," he said.
The new space will be the same size and will have the same decor.
It also will keep several familiar faces. Servers Mo An, Rick Massey and Marco Hicks, who have worked for years and Yen Yen and Tely's, will continue to work at the Suntree restaurant. Jennifer Skawinsky, who has been at Yen Yen almost from the beginning, is expected to pick up a few shifts at Tely's, too.
Tse said he isn't sad about closing this chapter in his life. It was a labor of love.
“If you ask me, ‘Are you going to miss it?’ Yes. I will,” he said. “All good things will come to an end.”
