New Year’s Eve at Chin Lee Restaurant

One hundred years ago today … New Yorkers could eat and dance their way into the new year at Chin Lee Restaurant at 1602 Broadway. The newly establishment touted itself as “a real Chinese restaurant at last,” with “food served only as the best Chinese chefs can prepare it.”

Chin Lee offered New Year’s Eve tables at no additional charge. Holidays were part of its marketing plan; it had advertised its “homelike” Xmas dinners right up to December 25th.

The below are undated, un-credited paintings of the restaurant interior, found on postcards put out y E.C. Kropp Co. in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Looks roomy, no? Well, Chin Lee’s second-floor space encompassed the entire corner of 49th and Broadway. As this undated photo (though clearly take a couple decades after 1921) below reveals, its “no cover charge” policy was also a major aspect of its marketing.

– Jonathan Goldman, Dec. 31, 2021

TAGS: restaurant, Asian American history, AAPI, cuisine, holidays, food