'When I'm in Liverpool, I've got to go to Sans, please take me to Sans Café'
A family-run Liverpool café where "the food will never be changed" has seen people come from all over the world to try their traditional dishes. Since the 1960s, Sans Café on Lightbody Street in Vauxhall, has welcomed generations of customers, serving everything from delicious Sichuan dishes to English and Irish breakfasts.
The business was founded by Tseng Chikha, from Sichuan, who served in the Chinese armed forces during the Second World War on the front line in Burma. Tseng had to leave the army after being wounded, but later joined the British Merchant Navy, which brought him to Liverpool.
Going on to serve hundreds of workers based on and around the city's Northern Docks, the name Sans stuck after failed attempts to pronounce Tseng's name. Now around six decades on from its humble beginnings, the café's red and yellow exterior continues to stand out among the surrounding industrial landscape.
READ MORE: Popular Chinese takeaway tucked behind Liverpool train station for decades
READ MORE: I visited Liverpool's Chinese supermarket and was surprised at what I took home with me
Tseng died in 2014, but the business remains in the family. Today, the restaurant and takeaway is run by Tseng's partner Lin Sunner and their family, including daughter Jane Kelly and grandson Jamie.
Ahead of Lunar New Year, Lin and Jane took us behind the scenes of their kitchen and told us more about their history in the city. Jane said what she thinks attracts customers to Sans Café the most is "her mum's food."
Jane told the Liverpool ECHO: "It's been going for a long, long time, before I was born. It goes back to the 1960s along the Dock Road when we were serving the dockers.
"We'd get all the trade up the street, all the traders coming in. I think now it's my mum's food that attracts people.
"It's also the hospitality that people get in here and the friendliness. They get that warm feeling as they walk in."
Through the decades, the family have come to know generations of customers. Owner Lin said originally, more English customers would visit, but they're now seeing more people from the Chinese community visit.
Lin told the ECHO: "Lately, a lot of Chinese people come in here. They taste the food, they say it's very like home - so they recommend their friends and the family and more and more people are coming here.
"First thing they notice is the food coming out the kitchen, they notice it is very, very hot and it's not greasy. It's nice and crispy, especially with the special chow mein.
"It's nice and with fresh vegetables, everything is fresh, so they taste it." Most popular dishes at Sans Café also include crispy chilli chicken, fried rice, salt and pepper chicken, char siu, wonton noodle soup and their "famous chop suey rolls" which quickly sell out.
Lin said the "food is never going to be changed" and that her favourite to make is the 'Chinese dumpling,' also known as wor tip. She said: "Everything, they love it.
"When a lot of people hear about this place, they want to come to try the food." For Jane, the "homely" feeling inside the café is something that "comes natural" to the family.
She added: "People come from Southport, they come from all over the world to come here to try the food. An American man came, he was visiting family and he said 'when I'm, in Liverpool, I've got to go to Sans, please take me to Sans Café."