A new upscale Chinese Restaurant is coming to Houston Lake Road just north of Ga. 96 later this spring, but don’t dare call it fine dining.

“We don’t want to scare people away or make them think they have to dress up and bring a lot money to eat there,” said Jean Cline, who will help operate the restaurant owned by her boyfriend, Vinson Lin. “But it will be a little nicer than what people are used to around Warner Robins.”

To be called Bensons, the 5,000-square foot restaurant is being built by International City Builders on an outparcel lot of the Windsor Place shopping center, next door to the Waffle House. Project manager Tommy Carter said it is scheduled to be completed by the end of April.

 “It’ll be nice, not your typical Chinese buffet place,” he said. “You’ll come in and be seated and waited on.”

Lin and Cline operated the Top Wok restaurant on Watson Boulevard for almost 18 years before Lin sold it a couple of years ago.

“He’s wanted his own place for awhile; it just took time to put it all together,” Cline said. “He wants something that won’t be a cookie cutter chain style restaurant.”

She said the menu will be mostly Chinese food to begin with but that it will likely expand later.

“The two of us know Chinese so well, that’s what we’ll start with. But eventually we want it to be more steak and seafood,” she explained.

Cline said they will wait until the building is nearer completion before planning an opening date.

“We don’t want to promise something we can’t deliver. We will have to hire and train the staff, so we’ve still got a lot to do,” she said.