Hula’s Chinese Bar-B-Q is opening a restaurant at 426 Walker St. in Orland, with the owners targeting January 2027. The business is known for build-your-own stir-fry bowls cooked on a large round grill. It is coming back to the same space where it once operated, about 20 years ago.
The restaurant is run by Leasa Hill and her family, who took over the Hula’s name when they acquired the business. Despite the name, Hill describes the food as closer to Mongolian barbecue than traditional Chinese cooking. Guests pick their own ingredients, and cooks stir-fry them on the grill.
“We raised our kids in Orland, so we’re excited to expand into a community that we’ve already been a part of,” Hill confirmed to What Now Sacramento.
Sauces are a big part of the menu. According to Hill, everything is made in house, including a rotation of 12 soups. She said many competitors pour sauce out of a jug, which can leave a dish too salty, and that the Orland location avoids that.
“We make all of our own sauces and soups in house,” Hill said. “It’s more of a Mongolian barbecue concept. I wouldn’t really consider it Chinese food. It’s the name that we acquired when we acquired the business.”
The name has a long local history. Hill said the original creators met at Chico State before moving to Hawaii, and the brand has become something of a legend in the area. “The name has become quite legendary now, which is the reason that we would never change it,” she said.
For the Hill family, the opening is also a homecoming. They raised their kids in Orland and had run a restaurant in the same location years earlier. “We actually had a restaurant there twenty years ago, ironically enough, in this same location,” Hill said. “We raised our kids at Orland, so we’re excited to expand into a community that we’ve already been a part of.”
The restaurant sits on Walker Street in downtown Orland, in the Glenn County seat along Highway 32.
