Jani closed in Hicksville: A family legacy

Jani, a Chinese-Japanese mainstay of the Hicksville community, has closed after 30 years on July 20. Chris Shah, whose parents, Alexander Shah and Katie Huang, owned the restaurant, said that they sold it in 2023, soon after Alexander started treatment for lung cancer. Chris said that his mother wanted “to spend more time taking care of her parents and my dad.” In Dec. 2025, Alexander died of pancreatic cancer.

The final owners of the restaurant could not be reached for comment.

Jani opened at 260 N. Broadway in 1995. It was the second Jani owned by Shah and Huang, whose father had bought the Jani at Walt Whitman shopping center in Huntington Station from its original owners, Jani and Michael Chen. (It opened in 1988 and closed a few years after Hicksville opened.) Huang said other family members opened more Janis in Rockville Centre, Mineola, Franklin Square and Wantagh. Only Wantagh remains.

Alexander Shah, recounted his son, was born in Beijing and immigrated to the United States when he was 18. After a stint at NYU, he embarked on a career in Chinese restaurants, working in Parsippany, New Jersey, before he wound up at Flower Drum in Manhattan (which opened in 1976) and then Eye of the Tiger in Hicksville (1990).

Chris recalled working at Jani as a teenager, especially on those “four busiest days of the year — Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. There were always long lines since all the other restaurants were closed.” The family always put on an extravagant Chinese New Year’s celebration — “with lion dancers and kung fu.”

Huang rued the sudden closing of the restaurant. “Everything happened so quickly that we never had the chance to personally say ‘thank you’ to all of the customers who supported us over the years. That has always remained one of our greatest regrets."