Immigrant family takes a father’s lessons to new levels of restaurant success in Fresno

Fresno's Restaurant Royalty is a Fresno Bee series that tells the stories of eight of the city’s most prominent restaurant families. Have a tip? Email bclough@fresnobee.com.

Jason Lin has earned the trust of River Park.

He and his family just opened their third restaurant in what is likely the most prominent shopping center in Fresno.

A relative newcomer to the Fresno restaurant scene, the Lin family has at least eight Asian restaurants in Fresno and Clovis, many in high-profile shopping centers. They include Hino Oishi at Campus Pointe, two Ramen Hayashi locations and three restaurants in River Park, such as Spicy’s J’s Speciality Chinese Cuisine.

They are part of The Bee’s series focusing on local restaurant families with several locations and often multiple generations involved that have shaped the Fresno restaurant scene.

The parents of the family, Chang-hua Jiang and Chang-fei Lin, started in Fresno as part owners of China Buffet on Blackstone Avenue, just north of Shaw Avenue.

They eventually became sole owners, remodeled it and turned it into the popular Lin’s Fusion, an Asian buffet that still gets people outside waiting for it to open. (The limited liability company that owns it recently agreed to pay $2 million to workers who were victims of wage theft five years ago.)

The parents retired, and son Jason Lin is the driving force behind the new restaurants. Brothers Jin and Kevin are often involved too.

The parents retired, and the family-run business now owns the restaurants. Son Jason Lin is the driving force behind the new restaurants, and his brothers Jin and Kevin are often involved, too.

Jason Lin said that when his father came to the U.S. alone, his first job was delivering food in New York. Not speaking English, it was one of the few jobs he could get.

He saved and supported his family back home, including a wife who was pregnant with Jason. Lin didn’t meet his dad until he was 6, when the rest of the family came to join him in the U.S.

Jason Lin would go on to attend Bullard High before moving to New York and Indianapolis to train in relatives’ restaurants.

Watching his father claw out a living in the U.S. left a mark on Lin.

“Seeing where he came from and how he started with nothing ... if he can do so much with so little, I can do much more with what’s he’s given me,” he said. “I can’t take it for granted.”

Lin started his first restaurant with his uncle in Indianapolis at age 18. He wasn’t old enough for bartending school, but he used his older brother’s ID to go anyway.

“If you believe and you have the will to do it, there’s always a way,” he said (though he doesn’t recommend lying about your age).

When he returned to Fresno, he opened Hino Oishi, a Japanese restaurant with teppenyaki chefs flipping flames and food into the air near Fresno State.

When the ramen craze hit Fresno, he opened two restaurants serving the popular Japanese noodle soup. The first was the Ramen Hayashi in Clovis near Herndon and Fowler avenues in 2020. The second Ramen Hayashi opened next to the theater at the Marketplace at El Paseo in Fresno 2022.

When the rolled ice cream fad — where ice cream is prepared while you watch on a frozen metal slab — came along, he opened two Rollie Rollie locations. The Fresno location has since closed and the Clovis one will soon, though Lin plans to reinvent it with a new dining concept.

And then came the businesses in River Park.

There, he opened one of the first hot pot restaurants in town, where bubbling pots of soup are brought to the table, with J Pot Mini Hot Pot & Bar in 2019. It has a boba tea place, Tshui-Ta inside to get it through the hot months.

Later that same year, Lin opened Spicy’s J’s Speciality Chinese Cuisine. It’s in the same spot as the 20-year-old Dai Bai Dang, the business the Lins bought upon the owner’s retirement.

And on March 19, they opened O-iza Modern Japanese in part of the former World Sports Cafe spot. It will serve sushi and high-end Japanese food with extras such as gold leaf and dry ice.

Lin oversees a total of four restaurants in properties owned by Lance Kashian & Co., including at Campus Pointe and River Park, noted senior vice president of marketing and public relations Tracy Kashian.

“Not only is he the nicest human I’ve ever worked with, he is an exceptional restaurant owner,” she said. “He just does a great job. He’s up to date. He’s with it.”