Parkside, with a twist

NEWTON GROVE — Parkside Sports Grille, the popular restaurant in town, is heading in a new direction with a new face at the helm in Jason Rin.

Rin took over the business following previous owner Ken Sutton, who wanted to step away from running the business due to his age and other passions. Parkside is located at 521 Clinton St., Newton Grove, which is off U.S. 701 just before reaching the circle.

Parkside has always been known for its food, from burgers to hotdogs, wings, cheesesteaks, beer and many other items. For those worrying about the menu change under new managment, they can put their worries at ease as Rin said he loves the menu as is. He did however introduce his own special homemade teriakyi sauce to that menu.

Rin came to the United States around 1980-81 after leaving his home country as a Cambodian refugee as his family fled to escape the violence of Pol Pot, a political leader whose communist Khmer Rouge government led Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. During that time, an estimated 1.5 to 2 million Cambodians died of starvation, execution, disease or overwork.

“Pot, he was killing the people, his own race and it was a couple of million,” Rin said. “He killed all the innocent people like his own father, educators, doctors, lawyers all of them. So my family left Cambodia because of that reason — we escaped the country, we didn’t leave a normal way.”

“We had to escape that way so they didn’t know that we left the country. If they had caught us, they would’ve killed us, but that’s the reason my dad and mom decided to leave.”

After living in a Thailand camp for a few years, Rin’s family was relocated to a Philippine camp, which eventually led to them coming to America.

“First we lived in the Thailand camp back in 1975 to about 1979,” Rin said. “Then from Thailand, they took us to a Philippine camp. I think it was called PRPC back in 1980-81 and then the United Nations took us here.”

“The first place that we lived was in Philadelphia, and man, I still remember the name of the road we lived on — it was Old York Road.”

Rin would spend his next 32 years living in Pennsylvania, where he’d eventually graduate from college at Cabrini University with a bachelor’s in management.

“Before I got that degree, I also went to a technical school and I got an associate’s degree in architecture design,” Rin said. “My dream was to be an architect, but I never thought I would be an architect designing food.”

The food industry is what led Rin to come to North Carolina. After spending those 32 years in Pennsylvania he decided it was time to move on, a decision that brought him to Winston-Salem.

“I moved and went to Winston-Salem to partner with my brother doing Japanese food at a Japanese restaurant called Kotta Japanese Grill,” he said. “Then one day, I just knew I didn’t really want to make Japanese food anymore because not a lot of population or many people eat it. I wanted to make something that everybody wants to eat.”

“So I decided, you know what, I told my brother I’m gonna sell my share to him because I wanted to do something else,” Rin said. “When he asked me what I told him — I’m thinking American food.”

“Of course he says, ‘you don’t know how to make America food,’ then I told him, ‘well, I don’t need to know how to make it — I will learn it,’” he added with a laugh.

Rin took a small vacation while searching for a new location to begin his new path in American cuisine. He’d struggle finding a place, which wasn’t a surprise as his search started in the fall of 2020 during the midst of COVID-19. Fortunately for Rin, however, he’d come across the ad that Parkside Sports Grille was for sale.

“Before I saw the ad for this place I’d been driving around everywhere just looking and looking for a restaurant,” he said. “I went to Charlotte, Raleigh, Hilton Head Island, you name it, all around in North Carolina but there was nothing. Then, finally, I saw this one.”

When Rin first came through Newton Grove to check out Parkside, he wasn’t completely sold on it right away.

“I came to look here after looking everywhere and when I arrived I said to myself, ‘oh man it’s so quiet here,’” he said. “There was no cars outside and when I drove by about three, four o’clock there’s nothing and they closed at five.”

Rin found himself still coming back and forth to Newton Grove despite that, thanks to some local food he’d purchased during his visit.

“When I came there was a guy named John that sells fresh seafood here, near the Newton Grove circle,” he said. “That day I was craving crab and when I went that day he only had trim and two black drum. So I told him, ‘Hey John, give me a pound and a half of shrimp and those two fishes.’”

“I took it home to Winston-Salem and my wife loves cooking Cambodian food,” he added. “When I ate that shrimp and fish, man it tasted so good. Then two, three weeks later I was craving for it again.”

It was during his return trip for John’s seafood that he finally decided to stop into Parkside to discuss with Sutton about taking over the business.

“I remember I said something like ‘honey, I want to eat that shrimp and the fish again so let’s go back to Newton Grove,’ so we went,” he said laughingly. “When we came this time I called the owner, Ken, and asked if he was around and he said ‘yeah, I’m here, I’m working every day.’”

Rin was still unsure if he wanted to make the move to buy Parkside after that meeting, but they’d meeting again before Rin made a decision.

“In the meantime, I keep coming back and forth to see how the business was doing,” Rin continued. “Driving by again still I saw no business and then one day I saw about about four call out there. After that I got to thinking if each car brings three people that’s 12 people total and if each one spent about $15, maybe that’s not a bad day, right.”

While trying to crunch numbers in his head he still wasn’t sold on making the move. Things changed, however, when he got encouraging words from his wife.

“I was calculating all these numbers in my head and I thought if I didn’t have a lot of employees I’d work myself to do what needed to be done to pay the bills,” he said.

“After that I said to my wife, all the money we saved up this is it, if we lose we will be gone,” Rin said. “You know what she said to me after that. She said, ‘honey, don’t worry about it. If we lose all this money, we’re gonna go back home and open our clinic back up.’”

“She’s a dentist and since I had something to fall back on I told her, ‘all right let’s do it honey,” he said. “So that’s how I got here coming from a refugee camp and growing up in United States. Now I’m the owner of a restaurant and bar.”