Restaurateur renowned for kindness
Peace River’s iconic Golden Palace became a popular community hub
The Golden Palace restaurant was open every day of the year except Christmas Day. But even on that day, it would be as full as ever.
Owner Sam Chow would invite the town, filling his 120-seat “closed” Chinese fine-dining restaurant on Main Street in Peace River. He welcomed travelling salesmen, RCMP officers far from home, other restaurant employees and anyone without family with whom to celebrate.
Kids ran around, played board games, ate ice cream and drank pop.
“We were still working,” his wife, Quiny, said.
“That was our Christmas Day,” his daughter, Cynthia, added.
Sam Chow died from pneumonia on March 13. He was 81.
The Golden Palace, which burned down in the early 1990s, is still remembered for its fabulous food: lemon chicken, huge and homemade egg rolls and pineapple chicken balls. Chow’s specialty was a mix of diced beef tenderloin and vegetables topped with a sprinkle of cashews.
In the 1950s, Chow immigrated to Vancouver from Hoi Ping, China.
He first worked as a farmhand and dishwasher while taking classes. He then moved to Alberta where he got his start as a cook at the historic McNamara Hotel — or ‘The Mac’ — in Peace River.
In 1962, he travelled to Hong Kong to marry Quiny. She joined him some months later, in part, she said, to give him time to buy better furniture for his bachelor pad.
Coming from bustling Hong Kong and a large family, adjusting to small-town life was a challenge.
In Peace River, “you would see more trees than people,” Quiny said.
Opening their own business helped.
Chow opened the Golden Palace — one of northern Alberta’s first Chinese fine-dining restaurants — in 1977 with Mac Hotel co-worker Frank Mah. They ran the restaurant and a cocktail lounge downstairs, as well as provided food to the hotel’s cafe and tavern — not an easy job.
They hired an interior designer from Edmonton who decorated the main restaurant with palace-like decor, from rich drapery to cocktail glasses, a rarity in rural Alberta.
“Gold and red is always good luck for Chinese people,” Quiny said.
The couple had some great luck in 52 years of marriage. They had four children, Cynthia, Campbell, Wendy and Calvin, and six grandchildren.
Peter Goddard, a longtime friend and financial adviser, said the Golden Palace was “an iconic spot” and the town’s hub.
Chow was a “good host and an even better cook,” Goddard said.
“He had a real twinkle in his eye,” Goddard said. “His eyes told the whole story.” After their first business meeting, which lasted long enough to get stomachs rumbling, Chow offered Goddard lunch.
“He came out with two plates of corned beef and cabbage,” Goddard said, having looked forward to Chow’s famous Chinese cuisine. “I said, ‘Thank you very much’ and I ate it and kept my mouth shut.”
Goddard had lots of chances later to sample Chow’s food. Over the years, he became close with the family, who often worked in the restaurant.
Chow himself put in long hours, starting at 11 a.m. and not finishing until after midnight many nights.
“We all learned our work ethic from our dad,” Cynthia said.
He kept it up even after his liver failed in 1983.
Watching the daytime soap the Young and the Restless became a favourite distraction during his multiple-times-a-day home dialysis treatments.
“Even though he wasn’t feeling well, he never used that as an excuse,” Goddard said. “He was a real plodder. He didn’t bring it up. He just kept plodding on. He was very brave.”
Seeing specialists meant a fivehour drive to Edmonton. It also meant learning a lot about the world of medicine.
“I became a doctor,” Quiny said with a chuckle. “It’s hard because of the language barrier. I had to use my hands, my eyes, to express myself.”
Chow also received a liver transplant, but his body rejected the organ.
After the couple moved to Edmonton following the fire, they focused on family and health, and connected with Edmonton’s tightknit Chinese community.
Chow is remembered for his love of his grandchildren and endless patience for them crawling over him as they watched Disney movies.
He was an exceptional cook, a big Oilers and Eskimos fan, quiet, modest and sharp. Most importantly, he was his wife’s ‘true partner.’”
“It’s really, really hard. No one can imagine how hard it is,” Quiny said, sitting in their Edmonton home.
“You always think he’s still around and then he’s not.”
(Chow was a) good host and an even better cook. He had a real twinkle in his eye. His eyes told the whole story.