Edna Ray closing after 54 years
Swan song: Order the Tangerine Beef and Honey Walnut Prawns while you can.
The South Bay’s venerable Edna Ray, a Chinese restaurant in business for 54 years, is shutting down and will be replaced by Sushi Arashi. No closing date has been announced.
Since 1963, Edna Ray has served classic Cantonese food and Szechuan dishes to thousands of diners in Los Gatos and, most recently, San Jose’s Willow Glen district. Particularly popular are the $6.95 to $8.65 lunch specials that come with entree and soup of the day and chicken salad and fried rice or steamed rice.
“It’s a shame,” said customer Lisa Ybarra, who was picking up cashew chicken, sauteed prawns and chow mein, “because it’s hard to find the good old-fashioned Chinese food I grew up with.”
Original owners Edna and Raymond Lee gave their first names to the restaurant. They, and later their son Bob, ran the enterprise on North Santa Cruz Avenue in Los Gatos. The restaurant, under new ownership, moved to Willow Glen in 2008. Details: Stay tuned for a closing date; until then, Edna Ray is open from 11:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. daily, and those lunch specials are served until 3 p.m. weekdays. 1181 Lincoln Ave., San Jose; 408-2807738.
Coming to the Creek: There’s a new entrant in the burger wars. A growing Southern California fast-casual restaurant is bringing its grass-fed, cage-free, non-GMO ethos to the Bay Area, and Walnut Creek is the first stop. Burger Lounge plans to serve lunch and dinner daily starting March 27 at The Orchards, the new center that’s sprung up at Ygnacio Valley Road at Oak Grove Road. Coming soon will be a Campbell location in the under-renovation Pruneyard.
The chain founded in 2007 by J. Dean Loring — he comes from a Sonoma County family of butchers — and Mike Gilligan has 20 other restaurants in Los Angeles, San Diego and Orange counties, plus Las Vegas.
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