Tasteful plan for Chinatown
Grant Avenue used to be one of the city’s showpieces, the main street of Chinatown. It was world famous; it glittered at night. Big-time stars like Frank Sinatra, Danny Kaye and Red Skelton dropped by when they were in town. There was even a Rodgers and Hammerstein song about it, and old San Franciscans could sing the rousing opening: “Grant Avenue, San Francisco, California, USA.”
It has an impressive dragon gate entrance where downtown ends and Chinatown begins. But today the traditional charm of Grant Avenue is mixed in with cheesy souvenir shops and Tshirt emporiums. The street is also dirty and a bit run-down. Stockton Street, a block west, has become the main street of Chinatown. Grant Avenue? That’s for tourists.
‘ The food’s lousy’
And worse, says Betty Louie, whose family owned gift shops on Grant for generations, the restaurant scene is dismal. James Louie, her cousin and partner in the family businesses, puts it more simply: “The food’s lousy.’’
There are some exceptions. The landmark Cathay House at California and Grant, where the Louies like to stop for lunch, is one. But there are not many others. Some, Betty Louie says, offer indifferent service. “They think the customers are all tourists. They are not coming back,” she says.
The Grant Avenue scene took a blow this fall, when the venerable Four Seas Restaurant on the 700 block closed. And now the end of the line is coming for the vast and luxurious Empress of China — which advertises dining amid “Oriental splendor with enchanting vistas.”
The Empress of China was famous for banquets and wedding receptions, but its owners still hope its Grant entrance will lure patrons with pictures of diners past: Jayne Mansfield, Jack Palance, Raymond Burr, Sammy Davis Jr., and a Holiday magazine dining award bestowed 35 years ago.
But the building has been sold; the rumor is that it will become offices. Think high tech.
The Louies believe Grant Avenue and the Chinatown scene can be revitalized. One of their examples is the city’s Mission District, which now has dozens of restaurants and a distinct vibe that attracts local people.
Destination restaurant
They think offering more festivals, like the Moon Festival in the fall, cleaning up the graffiti, commissioning murals on the walls, and cleaning up the grime will help.
But most of all, Betty Louie thinks, Grant Avenue needs a destination restaurant that would showcase fine Chinese cuisine, not the routine food served up in most Chinatown places.
The Louies have a lot of clout and they encouraged Brandon Jew, a native San Franciscan and a leading chef, to take over the site of the old Four Seas, a two-story, 10,000-squarefoot restaurant at 713 Grant.
“We have a very thriving Chinatown here,” he says, “unlike a lot of other Chinatowns in other cities, which are becoming ghost towns.”
He sees it as a business opportunity. “I do think people will want to,” he says.
He would use locally sourced ingredients and have a seasonal menu, something different from the old-line Chinese restaurants.
The site of the old Four Seas was once the Hang Far Low restaurant, which may well have been among the oldest Chinese restaurants in the country. John Hittell, a noted historian, called it “the Delmonico’s of Chinatown” in 1885, and it was an old establishment even then.
“The history of the place has kind of captivated me,’’ Jew says.
It will be a new idea on an old site. “If the food is good, they will come,” says Betty Louie.