16. CHOP SUEY . . . HUH?

Growing up, we seldom ate out. There were the odd times: an invitation to a celebratory wedding, birth or funeral dinner at a restaurant, on a rare all-day trip to Toronto.

During the school break when my mother, brother and I moved to the St. Paul Avenue restaurant for the summer, my mother and I would walk to Church’s Lane, catch a bus downtown, and do errands. Since this kind of trip took most of the day – the bus portion (including wait times) was probably an hour each way – my mother was generous in providing some sort of refreshment.

Sometimes, it would be a soft-serve ice-cream cone from My Country Delicatessen, 351 Queen Street (block between Erie & Ontario). Mother would have been there putting in a meat order for the restaurant because somehow they had run short on ground beef.

Or on an especially hot day, we might find ourselves up another block at Woolworth’s lunch counter. My mother would buy us each a Coke that came in a glass with ice and a straw. Typically, my mother, being old-fashioned Chinese, avoided cold drinks but in such heat, I think she liked to feel the coolness of the glass in her hand. Occasionally she’d buy a doughnut for me and less frequently, one for herself.

We sat up at the counter on tall swivel stools with shiny backs. The seats were not a big deal as my father’s restaurant had swivel stools - only lower and without backs.

It was the order receipts that were special. Uniform printed, newsprint pads were clipped along the counter at intervals. The waitress wrote down the costs of the items ordered, folded the corner back once the items were served, tore off the page once the bill was being paid and stuck it on a spike beside the cash register.

My father had order pads and a spike. He didn’t use them often. His customers usually indicated that they were ready to leave and he’d tell them how much they owed. It was mostly the customers who came to the restaurant for the first time – the only time – the folks who sat at the tables and seemed to expect a written tally. I think my father’s spike was only to save him extra steps to a garbage can after the table customer had stepped up to pay his bill.

Chop Suey?

Essentially, my window into restaurants, their foods and working was a very tiny crack. Not surprisingly, I did not know what chop suey was growing up. I only found out what chop suey was recently.

Growing up, I had thought chop suey was an exotic food that came in those cardboard cartons with wire handles that I only ever saw on TV but had never seen in life. I had been mistaken.

I had known chop suey. Well at least by name: a Chinese name – shap sui. My mother spoke of this dish, or rather kind of dish, with a disdain. Her tone suggested it was an inferior meal served only in Chinese restaurants – certainly not in our home.

I did not know until much later that the term referred to the “bits and pieces” of whatever was on hand cooked together and shap sui equated to chop suey in English.

According to Royal Alberta Museum’s Linda Tzang who curated the exhibit, “Chop Suey on the Prairies" (2014), bean sprouts were a consistent fresh ingredient of chop suey since they were easily grown. Stir-fried with soya sauce, bits of meat, carrots and celery, one had an exotic, therefore Chinese, dish.

When did chop suey come to Niagara Falls?

Chop suey restaurants were intended to attract non-Chinese customers so locations in proximity to the train station were ideal.

The earliest chop suey restaurant appears to have been the Annex Café located on Bridge Street beside the Trennick Hotel and across the street from the train station.

Annex Café - January 1935 
Courtesy of Niagara Falls (Ontario) Public Library Digital Collections

As can be seen in the photo, the large sign represented quite an investment: reliant on the draw of chop suey.

The history of the Annex Café is confusing. According to the city directories, the Annex Café was located at 42 Bridge St. from 1915 to 1925. Street numbering changed the following year and makes it difficult to determine if the Annex Café remained in the same location or moved.

Advertisement from Niagara Falls Gazette, June 18, 1925

The 1926 directory recorded the Annex Café at 254 Bridge St. From 1927 to 1930, its address was listed as 250-254 Bridge. From 1931 to 1934, the address changed to 248-254 Bridge. But in 1935, 248-254 Bridge was listed as being vacant despite the date recorded on the above photo.

Similarly, a 1935 Fire Underwriters Association Map notation indicated 248 Bridge as gone. However in a subsequent map revision, 258-265 (separated from the Metropole Hotel - formerly the Trennick Hotel - by an alleyway) were shown as a restaurant, pool room and possibly other rooms.

In Try to Control Yourself: The Regulation of Public Drinking in Post-Prohibition Ontario, 1927-44, author Dan Malleck (2012) noted that in the first months of the implementation of the Liquor Control Act in 1934, many restaurants tried to get permission to serve beer and wine by converting adjacent rooms into bedrooms: basically to appear and thereby qualify  as being a hotel.

Malleck provides details from an Inspector’s Report (27 Nov. 1934: AO, RG36-1-0-711):

“In Niagara Falls, the Annex Café was found to be ‘a well known Chinese Restaurant and has never pretended to give hotel service.’ Although the dining room was of an acceptable appearance, the ‘kitchen, bedrooms, and beds [were] dirty and filthy. Could not imagine this place being patronized by hotel guests . . . The proprietors had convinced the owner of an adjacent store to put his name forward as a ‘cover name to secure authority.’”

The pursuit of a liquor license may in part account for why the Annex Café address was not limited to one building.

As listed in the city directories, the managers/proprietors for the Annex Café, included:

1915 – LEE LING & LEE MOW

1916, 1918 – Harry Willox

1922 & 1923 – YICK, YUEN & HONG

1925 – H. CHUNG

1929-1932 – CHONG KWONG


In the ad below, the reference "cooked by those who know" suggests that the National Cafe had Chinese cooks.

Advertisement from Niagara Fall Gazette, June 18, 1925

Chop suey over the next decades?

Under the category heading of “Restaurants” in the city directory for the years 1935, 1940, and 1945, the listings did not indicate any restaurants specifically as being Chinese: either by including the descriptor Chinese or having a name associated with Chinese food.

Instead, only those restaurants (Frisco Café, King George Café, Sunrise Café, and New World) previously mentioned in other posts as being Chinese-operated appeared. As to whether all these served some Chinese-style food is unknown.

Some Chinese-operated restaurants in Niagara Falls included a few Chinese items as a section their menus.

Pages from Frisco Café Menu,
Frisco Cafe, 1717 Victoria Ave. - purchased by my father and re-named New World

Pages from New World Café Menu
New World Cafe, 1717 Victoria Ave. - my father's first restaurant

Others implied a specialization in Chinese foods through restaurant name associations (e.g. Nanking and Lichee). Still, a few dispelled any guesswork in what they served - chop suey - by specifying.

From 1950 to 1951, the New China Chop Suey was located at 559 Erie Ave. However, in the 1952 city directory, the address is listed as being Shanghai Chop Suey.  From 1953 to 1955 city directories show New China Chop Suey as being located at 559 Erie Ave.

JOE CHONG was associated with the restaurants up to at least 1953. He lived next door at 561 Erie Ave. until 1954 when his name no longer appears in the city directory. LUOCKU QUONG also resided in the same building.
In the 1955 city directory, 559 Erie Ave. is listed as the New China Chop Suey House as well as address of TOM CHAN and CHON YIEN. By 1956, 559 Erie Ave. became the Europe Cafe. 



In the 1960 city directory, my father's Sam Lee Restaurant had been included in the listings. As stated in other posts, he did not serve Chinese food.

However, several other restaurants serving Chinese food had emerged and were recorded in the 1960 city directory:

     The China Doll, 1292 Ferry St.
     Chu's Restaurant, 1026 Centre St.
     Oriental Restaurant, 633 Queen St.
     Rose Garden, 880 Victoria Ave.
     Welcome Inn, 3196 McLeod Rd.

By 1965, the aforementioned restaurants with the exception of The China Doll were still listed in the city directory. Other changes included the addition of Jade Garden at 1306 Victoria Ave. and an address change to 2927 McLeod Rd. for the Welcome Inn.