“We added a handful of new items, but everything is not made until you order it. “Most of the dishes are the same ,” says Ye. Most of the previous staff (and previous menu) have indeed migrated over to the new San Gabriel restaurant. The wait times on weekends are already almost an hour long, even though the staff will quote a time of 15 minutes.Īs for whispers of a worker fallout at the previous iteration of the restaurant, Bistro 1968 manager Gary Ye (who was also a manager at Enlighten Bistro 168) refuted the chef departure rumors, clarifying that it was an investor falling out that ultimately ended things at the previous location.

Here diners can enjoy dishes that no other dim sum restaurant in Los Angeles offers. Now there is Bistro 1968, which has opened at a much bigger venue than before (growing from 5,000 square feet to now over 7,000). The Arcadia space continues to sit empty after a hefty sum of money was put into its remodel. When Enlighten Bistro 168 did manage to eventually reopen as a rebranded Sichuan restaurant with a handful of random dim sum dishes, it only lasted a little over a week before shuttering. Local Chinese social media groups claimed that there was infighting between the head chef and the restaurant’s owners, which ultimately led to its closure in Arcadia. Chan said that the staff told her that the main chef had quit his job. “They just closed out of nowhere and never opened back up,” says Nicole Chan, a local diner from Arcadia, who was previously a big fan of the restaurant. In the last message to diners when the restaurant briefly reopened for a week, management claimed that its original chef went on vacation. Unfortunately, the restaurant was short-lived, lasting less than three months before it mysteriously closed with paper signs plastered on the door saying that it would be returning in a month after “renovation” - a common enough tactic for restaurants that have closed permanently.ĭespite the opaque language, there actually were attempts to reopen the restaurant, but date after date kept passing as efforts to bring back Enlighten Bistro 168 became plagued with often odd problems. Local SGV food enthusiasts praised Enlighten Bistro 168 when the all-day elevated dim sum experience first opened in Arcadia in 2021, calling it some of the best dim sum in the area on WeChat (Chinese Twitter) and Xiao Hong Shu (Chinese Instagram/Tik Tok). Bistro 1968, formerly known as Enlighten Bistro 168, has found a new home in the city of San Gabriel as of December 3. One of the San Gabriel Valley’s most anticipated restaurant openings has finally come to fruition after nearly a yearlong uphill battle.

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