Nearing its 150th anniversary, the one-of-a-kind building that long served as the home to King Fong Cafe remains vacant and underutilized.
Built in 1880, the building at 315 S. 16th Street started its life as the home to the Columbus Buggy Company, followed by C. W. Baker Undertaker and G. E. Harket Furs. It was reinvented by Tolf Hanson as his Cafe Beautiful. The owner of the popular Calumet Cafe, Hanson spared no expense in making his new restaurant the finest in town.
In addition to adding a kitchen and furnishings, he hired contractor John Harte in 1908 to give the facade a Spanish Renaissance-style with Flemish Gothic moldings. He also added Tiffany glass windows and the marble staircase. When it was finished, Cafe Beautiful, with its European cuisine and French-inspired wait service, achieved its owner’s goal of being recognized as the best. Unfortunately, the restaurant did not do well enough to make it profitable. In debt, Hanson skipped town and passed away within a year of its opening.
Following its closure, the basement was converted to a different cafe while Florsheim Shoe Company took over the first floor and Logan and Bryan, grain and stockbrokers, occupied the second floor.
It started its long run as King Fong Cafe in 1920 when Chin Ah Gin opened its doors. Born in California to a Chinese immigrant potato farmer, Gin had opened his first restaurant in Duluth, Minnesota. He came to Omaha around the time of the Trans Mississippi Exposition in 1898 and opened the Mandarin Cafe in 1912. Located in Omaha’s Chinatown, the restaurant was on the second floor of the Budweiser Saloon, the same building where Tom Dennison established his headquarters.
The popularity of his restaurant caused Gin to relocate to a larger space in the former home of Cafe Beautiful. To furnish his restaurant, he traveled to Hong Kong where he bought ornate, hand-carved chandeliers that told the story of a Chinese opera, in addition to intricate woodwork, hand-carved teak tables, chairs inlaid with mother-of-pearl, silk embroideries that he used to line the walls, detailed carvings, and ornate tile floors. He also added a third floor where he installed enclosed booths for added privacy. When he opened the doors to King Fong Cafe in 1920, it was like nothing most citizens of Omaha had ever seen or experienced with its extravagant interior and Cantonese cuisine.
Gin’s longtime employee Sin Huey arrived in the U.S. with his uncle at age 12. He began working as a waiter at King Fong at 17 years old. He later served in the Army during World War II and worked as a translator for the Immigration and Naturalization Service. In 1950, twenty-four years after he started working at the restaurant, he took over as its manager following Gin’s retirement. When Gin handed the restaurant to the Huey family, he did so on the condition that they continue to provide jobs for new immigrants. Like Gin, he continued to operate it as a family restaurant. After taking over, he closed public access to the third floor, and it remained that way ever since. He was steadfast in his refusal to change the decor; however, he did modify the menu over the years to reflect the changing tastes of its customers.
In 2007, Omaha-born director Alexander Payne and others bought the building in order to preserve it and to ensure that the city’s oldest restaurant continued to operate. While other family members took over the restaurant following Sin’s retirement in 1983, it did eventually close in 2016. The doors have been closed for nearly a decade.
Home to two of the city’s most extravagant restaurants, Tolf Hanson’s Cafe Beautiful and Chin Ah Gin’s King Fong Cafe, the building remains under the ownership of Payne. Even so, this building with unparalleled history within a half block of the city’s historic 100% corner sits vacant, waiting for its next chapter should the opportunity present itself.
This is the fifth article in a series featuring endangered and underutilized buildings. This series is in collaboration with Preserve Omaha.
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Sources
- Omaha World-Herald archives
- https://northomahahistory.com/2019/03/05/a-history-of-omahas-chinatown-by-ryan-roenfeld/.
- https://www.heatherheierlane.com/new-blog-1/2019/6/26/zehv34zp5uy87u20z6qv62kban8oqd.
- https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/180787586/chin-ah-gin.
- “Chinatown Lost and Found.” Omaha Magazine, 2 3 2018, https://www.omahamagazine.com/2018/03/02/302127/chinatown-lost-and-found.
- “Preservation of King Fong Cafe.” Omaha Magazine, 3 5 2018, https://www.omahamagazine.com/2018/03/03/302119/preservation-of-king-fong-cafe.
- https://restorationexchange.org/2019/05/13/remembering-thick-chu-huey/
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