The Restaurants Along Rt. 66
To Celebrate the Opening of the new Constance Chiang Pan Anthropology Reading Room at UC Berkeley, a team of faculty, graduate and undergraduate researchers have pulled together an exhibit about the Chinese Diasporic presence on historic Route 66 as evidenced by FS Louie’s restaurant ceramics!
While the famous song “Get your Kicks on Route 66” emphasized the travels of drivers starting in Chicago and traveling westward to California, we want to emphasize the eastward travels that were just as important to commerce along the freeway.
In their travels along the “Mother Road”, the Louies stopped at large historic Chinatowns and small “mom and pop” businesses set up by small Chinese American communities, sometimes numbering just a few families, pursuing their American dreams. For the first several blog posts, we’ll be looking at each of the stops that we can identify made by the Louies, based on the ceramics they left behind!
Los Angeles Chinatown Today http://www.lachinatowncorp.com/portfolio/commercial/#lightbox[group-243]/7/
FIRST STOP:
LOS ANGELES NEW CHINATOWN
The Louies’ Route 66 journey seems to have started in the “New” Los Angeles China town. Multiple businesses were customers of FS Louie. In some cases, they sold to different restaurants occupying the same address. While the Louies sold to many Los Angeles businesses, in this post we are only discussing businesses associated with the “New Chinatown” established in the late 1930s.
Joy Yuen Low and Hong Kong Restaurant, 425 Gin Ling Way, Los Angeles China Town, California
FS Louie teacup for Joy Yuen Low
Joy Yuen Low restaurant was open by 1931, being cited in newspaper features by that year, its address given as in “China Town”, at 610 N. Spring at Sunset. In 1940, local newspapers announced that a new building “featuring traditional Chinese features” was being built to house the restaurant at 425 Gin Ling Way. The new restaurant (which kept its original phone number–MU-9678), according to Walter Yip, one of the co-owners, would include banquet facilities to accommodate up to 250 people.
The venue was an important social space for both members of the Chinese American community and the broader community of LA. The restaurant regularly played an important role in annual celebrations of the founding of the Chinese Republic in the 1940s. Newspaper accounts from the 1930s to 1950s also show the restaurant, in its old and new locations, hosting a gathering of the Northeastern Optimist’s Club, celebrations for the Moon Festival, a banquet in honor of Dr. Yi-Seng Kiang, the former Consul General of the Republic Of China, in 1954, and meetings of the local Parents’ Teachers Association.
Fawn Louie, like a number of restaurant owners he sold to, was a member of the Optimist Club, an international organization founded in 1919 with a commitment to youth service directed towards solving challenges of living in an industrialized world. Like other restaurants who did business with the Louies, the Hongs were part of a socially and politically engaged Chinese American community. In 1956, the restaurant hosted US senator Kochul, the last time that it appears in news coverage. By April 19, 1958, the address and building was advertised in the Los Angeles Mirror as the location of the restaurant Hong Kong Low, managed by Bill Hong.
Hong Kong Low today
Hong Kong Low remained an important civic, social and entertainment center in Los Angeles’ “New” Chinatown. Advertisements in Los Angeles and surrounding newspapers show that the restaurant was known both as Hong Kong Low and Hong Kong Restaurant. Notably, Hong Kong Restaurant also bought ceramics from F.S. Louie and Co: ashtrays.
As traffic to Chinatown dropped, restaurant owners looked for new ways to bring people in. Across the plaza from Hong Kong Low, Esther Wong opened her space as a music venue, Madame Wong’s, which was important for supporting new wave music. Bill Hong named his second floor space “Hong Kong Cafe”, which advertised itself as a mainly “New Wave venue in a highly decorated Chinese Restaurant” in the LA Weekly in 1979. However, the club quickly developed a reputation for “punk and other new music”, with acts like Black Flag, Legal Weapon, the Alley Cats, Shifters, The Kingbees, the Mau Maus, The Crowd, and the Descendents. By the early 1980s, the punk scene had moved on, though competing club, Madame Wong’s endured in a second West Los Angeles location.
https://maumaus.monster/mau-maus-and-punk-rock-riots-at-the-hong-kong-cafe/
https://lamag.com/nightlife/stay-zero-proof-la-alcohol-free-cocktail-lounge/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YF4Di288A8E&t=52s
Moytel
A 1960 article in the Eagle Rock Sentinel covered the opening of a new apartment block in Chinatown at 946 Yale Street. Built and owned by Nelson Moy, the 18 one bedroom apartments and 6 bachelor studios were recognized as built for Chinese Americans by Chinese Americans. Featuring modern electrical conveniences like electrical ranges and ovens, heated bathrooms and heat and air conditioning, plus extensive gardens and patios, the two buildings comprising the complex were seen as an outstanding example of urban rejuvenation. The building is still standing and still has its “Moytel” electric sign.
Moytel Ashtray by FS Louie.
Yee Hung Guey
Customers line up outside Yee Hung Guey circa 1940, photo held by LA County Library.
Yee Hung Guey which was one of the first restaurants opened in the New Chinatown on the 900 block of Gin Lin Way. Based on photographs held by the Los Angeles Public Library and newspaper advertisements, the restaurant was most popular in the 1940s and early 1950s. Groups as diverse as college sororities, mineralogical societies and church groups announced events at the restaurant. The last advertisement found for the restaurant dates to 1962, when the Tidings announced that the STALPAR Club (Single Catholics Over 35) would be meeting for dinner after Mass at Yee Hung Guey.