This story is part of a Georgia Voice series highlighting LGBTQ+-owned restaurants in Atlanta.
Since its inception six years ago, JenChan’s, a quirky little restaurant in Atlanta’s Cabbagetown neighborhood, has been about one thing: bringing people together to eat supper.
“We just feel very strongly about how sentimental it is to sit together and eat,” Emily Chan said, who co-owns JenChan’s with her wife, Jen. “I think it’s a salve for all the world’s problems.”
JenChan’s started as a supper club: one dinner a week, delivered all across Atlanta by Emily, paired with a newsletter. With an overwhelming and positive reception, the mobile food operation grew to five dinners a week, made out of a commercial kitchen space at PREP Kitchen near Doraville.
But with a newborn baby at home and the long commute from Cabbagetown to Prep weighing on them, the Chans decided it was time to open their own restaurant.
The beginning was rough, Chan admitted. They had no money. “It was paint on the walls, that was all – and we put that on a Lowe’s credit card,” she recalled.
The Chans opened JenChan’s restaurant in 2019. Six months later, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Luckily, the restaurant’s supper club structure allowed it to survive the global health crisis. Today, the Cabbagetown restaurant located on Carroll Street is thriving as a fun and unique testament to the joys of food and community, as the Chans had always intended.
Walk into JenChan’s and you’re met with an eclectic menu that includes Chinese burritos, Mexican pizza, and Mongolian beef cheesesteak.
“We don’t want to pick a lane,” Chan said of the menu. “There is definitely definition in the chaos, everything on the menu plays with each other, but the point of it is to just be completely irreverent, and to find some joy in it.”
Related story: JenChan’s owners opening Mikkelson’s Market in Reynoldstown
A diverse menu isn’t the only reason JenChan’s stand out on Atlanta’s food scene.
LGBTQ+ community members can pick up a “Gay Card” at the restaurant for a free ginger margarita slushie and other “super gay specials” for life. Weekend brunch features a combination of dim sum, Southern breakfast dishes, and afternoon tea, plus deals for Gay Card holders.
Every other Monday, JenChan’s hosts mahjong, an ancient Chinese game enjoying a resurgence in cities like Atlanta.
“People ask us all the time, ‘What style is it? Is it Hong Kong? Is it American?’” Chan said of Mahjong Mondays. “We play JenChan’s mahjong. It’s from Jen’s childhood memories. We have a little book with the rules on it that we give you, but if you play your own version, play your way. We have experts who walk around and get you started on game play and answer questions.”
Last year, the Chans expanded their restaurant brand again. This time to a market with a counter-service operation.
Mikkelson’s Market now resides in the former Urban Market grocery store on Flat Shoals Avenue in nearby Reynoldstown. They named the market after Emily Chan’s late father, while also paying tribute to her family’s Danish heritage through dishes and specialty items sold at the market.
JenChan’s, 186 Carroll St., Cabbagetown. Mikkelson’s Market, 210 Flat Shoals Ave., Reynoldstown.
