LONE FONE FAREWELL
The Lone Fone, that distinctive Chinese restaurant on Walker Road with the red bricks and green roof, will serve its last wonton soup Saturday after 46 years in business. Dave Hayes, right, and his wife, Gail, have been taking their family there for decad
No. 4 and a won ton.
David Bodi was such a Lone Fone regular for 30 years, he didn’t have to tell the waitress his lunch order.
“Same?” she’d ask and his sweet and sour chicken, fried rice, chop suey and egg roll were on the way.
When Bodi and other regulars at the Walker Road restaurant heard it was closing Saturday night, they made a point of coming in for a last meal or two at their favourite place. And there was the owner, Ken, going from table to table, talking and shaking hands with longtime customers and slipping some regulars like Bodi’s wife some extra almond cookies to go.
“He told me I was going to make him cry because I said I’ll be back tonight for dinner, tomorrow for lunch and Friday again for lunch,” Bodi joked earlier this week. “There’s no question he’s going to be missed tremendously.”
Bodi remembers his father-inlaw’s funeral and how Ken came to the funeral home and brought food for the grieving family.
The Tsang family — known for making customers feel like they were family — were too shy this week to talk about the restaurant closing after 46 years. They had announced at Christmas that Lone Fone was closing and had been overwhelmed by the number of customers coming back in for a last taste in the last few weeks, their son Robert Tsang said Thursday.
“They had the restaurant for so long it’s one of those where I don’t think they really realized how much of an impact the restaurant had on their customers and vice versa,” he said.
Dave Hayes, 59, figures he and his family have been eating there two to three times a month for decades. He was working at Sears fitting the family ’s children in shoes when he first started going and then it became “our place” for he and his wife Gail and their children. They’ve held family celebrations with 40 to 50 people in the backroom.
Places like Lone Fone are a dying breed in Windsor, he said.
“Those are the types of restaurants the city is going to miss … the old Chicken Court, the old (L’Auberge de) la Bastille, Ye Olde Steakhouse, all those restaurants are now gone. You got to know the owners and you got to know them personally,” Hayes said. “It’s family restaurants and I think they’re so, so important. They’re going to be missed.”
His daughter Breanne Renaud of Harrow has been a Lone Fone fan since she was a baby and now her one-year-old daughter will have a unique link with the restaurant even though it’s closing.
“I had gone in when I was pregnant with my first-born daughter and I actually ended up going into labour because of their hot and sour soup.”
Renaud loves the soup. “Their hot and sour soup is amazing. Nobody can make hot and sour soup like Kenny can.”
She said she’ll miss the food and the people.
“It gives you that sense of comfort because nothing ever changes in there,” Renaud said. “It looks like something straight out of the 1980s.”
There’s no word on what’s next for the shy retirees or the landmark red-brick building with its green roof. And the name? It’s not some odd reference to calling for takeout. Lone means dragon and fone is for phoenix.
Those are the types of restaurants the city is going to miss .... You got to know the owners and you got to know them personally.