A San Francisco-Based Dumpling Lounge Is Moving Into the Shuttered Joyful House Spot

A popular San Francisco-based dumpling lounge is expanding to Las Vegas and taking over the former Joyful House Chinese Cuisine space. The new restaurant, founded by the family behind Koi Palace and Dragon Beaux, will serve all the modern Chinese favorites the brand is known for inside a sleek and renovated interior.

Construction is underway as the Ng family renovates the space formerly occupied by Joyful House, which closed in October 2022. The new Palette Tea Lounge will emulate the designs of the Bay Area’s Palette Tea House and Palette Tea Garden, which have wooden furnishings, soaring lanterns, and wall-size murals. And renovations include building out an open kitchen with a steaming area, a front-line kitchen, an area for roasting meat, and space for wok-cooking — all of which are necessary for the restaurant’s offerings of lobster ha gow, salted egg yolk Dungeness crab, and xiao long bao soup dumplings folded with pretty pastel wrappers.

Palette Tea Lounge marks the Ng family’s first expansion to Southern Nevada. “Las Vegas was always an area we wanted to break into and we like the demographic of Las Vegas,” says Joey Ng, the manager of Pallette Culinary Group. “It’s a lively city.” Ng is hoping to open the restaurant by the end of 2023, acknowledging that construction and hiring may push a debut date back.

Palette Tea House

Other popular dishes from the Palette restaurants include black taro puffs shaped like swans, crispy unagi rice rolls, roasted Peking duck, wagyu beef chow fun noodles, and truffle garlic steamed lobster. Palette Tea Lounge will be located at 4601 Spring Mountain Road in Chinatown.

Patricia Chang