Johnny Kan
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Johnny Kan (1906–1972) was a
Chinese American Chinese Americans are Americans of Chinese ancestry. Chinese Americans constitute a subgroup of East Asian Americans which also constitute a subgroup of Asian Americans. Many Chinese Americans have ancestors from mainland China, Hong Kong ...
restaurateur in
Chinatown, San Francisco The Chinatown (), centered on Grant Avenue and Stockton Street in San Francisco, California, is the oldest Chinatown in North America and one of the largest Chinese enclaves outside Asia. It is also the oldest and largest of the four nota ...
, ca 1950–1970. He was the owner of Johnny Kan's restaurant, which opened in 1953, and published a book on
Cantonese cuisine Cantonese or Guangdong cuisine, also known as Yue cuisine ( zh, t=廣東菜 or zh, labels=no, t=粵菜), is the cuisine of Cantonese people, associated with the Guangdong, Guangdong province of China, particularly the provincial capital Guan ...
, ''Eight Immortal Flavors'', which was praised by Craig Claiborne and
James Beard James Andrews Beard (May 5, 1903 – January 21, 1985) was an American chef, cookbook author, teacher and television personality. He pioneered television cooking shows, taught at The James Beard Cooking School in New York City and Seaside ...
.&nbs
alternate PDF link
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second PDF link
Kan and Cecilia Chiang (proprietor of the ''Mandarin'' in
Ghirardelli Square Ghirardelli Square is a landmark public square at the foot of Russian Hill and adjacent to the Aquatic Park Historic District in San Francisco. It is often considered to be part of the tourist attractions at nearby Fisherman's Wharf. A portio ...
) are credited with popularizing authentic Chinese cuisine as a fine dining option, displacing the stereotypical chop suey
American Chinese cuisine American Chinese cuisine, also known as Sino–American cuisine, is a style of Chinese cuisine developed by Chinese Americans. The dishes served in North American Chinese restaurants are modified to suit customers' tastes and are often quite d ...
prevalent in the 1950s and 60s.


Life and career

Kan was raised in Grass Valley, Oregon and moved to San Francisco with his family when he was nine. Because his parents could not afford the tuition, he began working at a grocery store (Sam Hing and Company, 1040 Grant) instead of attending junior high school. Sam Hing also roasted peanuts; Kan advertised in ''Variety'' at his brother's suggestion, and earned a lucrative contract with Barnum and Bailey. Kan went on to manage the Fong Fong soda fountain and bakery, introducing ice cream with traditional Chinese flavors in 1935. Fong Fong became a magnet for local Chinese-American youths, drawing weekend crowds from Berkeley and
Stanford Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth governor of and th ...
. Kan is credited with opening the Chinese Kitchen restaurant at the corner of Mason and Pacific in 1939. It offered the first Chinese food delivery service in America; food was kept hot with the help of stainless steel hot water tanks in the back of a fleet of Chevrolet trucks. Kan and Dr. Theodore Lee jointly founded the Cathay House restaurant, housed in the landmark Sing Chong building at Sacramento and Grant, on September 28, 1939; the largest single investor was Ernest Tsang, who contributed US$5,500 of the US$9,700 in capital raised. Kan left the restaurant to serve in the Army during World War II, enlisting on July 23, 1943, and being honorably discharged on November 26 of the same year. After his discharge, Kan expected to be restored as co-manager of Cathay House, but Tsang refused and Kan sued him in 1944. According to Tsang's testimony, he had offered Kan the co-manager job at his previous salary of US$500/month upon Kan's return from the Army, but Kan had refused and asked for a salary equivalent to Tsang's, at US$750/month. The initial suit was not successful, and a subsequent state-level appeal was also unsuccessful, but the verdict was later overturned in federal court.


Kan's

The eponymous restaurant "Kan's" operated at 708 Grant Avenue. In Kan's words, he wanted to "launch the first efficiently operated and most elaborate Chinese restaurant n Chinatownsince the collapse of the old Mandarin estaurant on Bush" According to the Chinese Historical Society of America, "Kan's was the first restaurant in Chinatown to win the
Holiday (magazine) ''Holiday'' was an American travel magazine published from 1946 to 1977, whose circulation grew to more than one million subscribers at its height. The magazine employed writers such as Alfred Bester, Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Lawrence Dur ...
Award for fine dining; that award was given to Kan's for 14 consecutive years. Its name was frequently on top ten lists of San Francisco restaurants. World-famous celebrities, movie stars, the rich and the powerful came to Kan's, and their appearances were written up by San Francisco columnist
Herb Caen Herbert Eugene Caen (; April 3, 1916 February 1, 1997) was a San Francisco humorist and journalist whose daily columnist, column of local goings-on and insider gossip, social and political happenings, and offbeat puns and anecdotes—"A continuo ...
." Don Clever was credited with designing the interior at Kan's. The introduction of an innovative version of the Lazy Susan to Chinese restaurants has been attributed to Kan's: "The trail of the Chinese Lazy Susan finally picks up in the 1950s, which is when Chinese food got its makeover. The hub of Chinese American cuisine was San Francisco's Chinatown, where a new generation of entrepreneurial restaurant owners was trying to better adapt Chinese cooking to American tastes. One of them was Johnny Kan, who opened a Cantonese-style restaurant in 1953. He worked with three Chinese-American friends (George Hall, John C. Young (brothers-in-law who started Wing Nien Foods, a soy sauce company) and George Chow who had helped acquire the very important liquor license - to try to make his restaurant both respectable and modern...In the mid-1950s, Hall...put together a revolving tabletop that became the pivotal element of Kan's new banquet room." Celebrities who dined at Kan's regularly included
Frank Sinatra Francis Albert Sinatra (; December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer and actor. Honorific nicknames in popular music, Nicknamed the "Chairman of the Board" and "Ol' Blue Eyes", he is regarded as one of the Time 100: The Most I ...
,
Dean Martin Dean Martin (born Dino Paul Crocetti; June 7, 1917 – December 25, 1995) was an American singer, actor, and comedian. Nicknamed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, King of Cool", he is regarded as one of the most popular entertainers of ...
, Sammy Davis Jr.,
Marilyn Monroe Marilyn Monroe ( ; born Norma Jeane Mortenson; June 1, 1926 August 4, 1962) was an American actress and model. Known for playing comic "Blonde stereotype#Blonde bombshell, blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex ...
, and
Herb Caen Herbert Eugene Caen (; April 3, 1916 February 1, 1997) was a San Francisco humorist and journalist whose daily columnist, column of local goings-on and insider gossip, social and political happenings, and offbeat puns and anecdotes—"A continuo ...
, who helped to publicize the restaurant in his column. Jeanne Phillips, best known for helping her mother with and then taking over the advice column
Dear Abby ''Dear Abby'' is an American advice column founded in 1956 by Pauline Phillips under the pen name "Abigail Van Buren" and carried on today by her daughter, Jeanne Phillips, who now owns the legal rights to the pen name. History According to Pau ...
, confesses she "had a huge crush on the maitre d', and the food was good, too." While covering the
1964 Republican National Convention The 1964 Republican National Convention took place in the Cow Palace, Daly City, California, from July 13 to July 16, 1964. Before 1964, there had been only one national Republican convention on the West Coast, the 1956 Republican National Convent ...
,
Walter Cronkite Walter Leland Cronkite Jr. (November 4, 1916 – July 17, 2009) was an American broadcast journalist who served as anchorman for the ''CBS Evening News'' from 1962 to 1981. During the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as "the most trust ...
dined at Kan's; after Kan asked if he would like to meet the chef, Cronkite was ushered into the kitchen and introduced to
Danny Kaye Danny Kaye (born David Daniel Kaminsky; ; January 18, 1911 – March 3, 1987) was an American actor, comedian, singer, and dancer. His performances featured physical comedy, idiosyncratic pantomimes, and rapid-fire novelty songs. Kaye starred ...
, who had been studying at Chinese cooking at Kan's for years. Following the immediate success of Kan's Restaurant, the four partners recruited a fifth partner, Dan Lee, and opened another premium Chinese restaurant in 1956 named Ming's, located on El Camino Real near
Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...
in
Palo Alto Palo Alto ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for ) is a charter city in northwestern Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. Th ...
, on the
San Francisco Peninsula The San Francisco Peninsula is a peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area that separates San Francisco Bay from the Pacific Ocean. On its northern tip is the City and County of San Francisco. Its southern base is Los Altos and Mountain View, ...
. Ming's moved to 1700 Embarcadero Road in 1968, and was subsequently sold in 1991 to Vicky Ching. That restaurant closed at the end of 2014, and the land was intended to be redeveloped as an extended-stay hotel which would host a smaller Ming's in the lobby by 2016. However, those plans fell through. The City of Palo Alto adopted a mitigated negative declaration for plans to redevelop the site as an auto dealership in 2016.


''Gum Shan'' paintings by Jake Lee

Kan commissioned twelve paintings from Jake Lee in 1959, and hung them in the ''Gum Shan'' () private dining room at Kan's. After Kan died in 1972, the paintings were thought to be lost; the succeeding owner, Guy Wong, had kept the paintings up until he closed the restaurant in the early 1990s, after which he stored them in the garage of one of his
busboy In North America, a busser, sometimes known as a busboy or busgirl, is a person in the restaurant and catering industry clearing tables, taking dirty dishes to the dishwasher, setting tables, refilling and otherwise assisting the waiting staff ...
s, Bloor Chau. Chau later ran out of space and threw them away in 2008. Eleven of the twelve later surfaced at an auction in Pasadena in 2010. The Chinese Historical Society of America acquired seven of the eleven that were on auction after hurriedly raising $60,000 from donors. After CHSA tracked down Guy Wong and Bloor Chau, they found the twelfth painting, depicting the champion Chinese fire-hose team of Deadwood, South Dakota in 1888, hanging in Chau's business, an automotive repair shop in the Bayview district of San Francisco. The remaining four paintings were acquired by a private collector in Kern County.


Death and legacy

Kan died on December 7, 1972, aged 66, from cancer, at Saint Francis Memorial Hospital. Funeral services were held in Oakland on December 11. Kan and his wife Helen were one of six couples who purchased the neglected Hakone Gardens in 1961 and restored the site before selling it to the city of Saratoga in 1966.


References


Bibliography

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External links


Kan photographed with
Diego Rivera Diego Rivera (; December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957) was a Mexican painter. His large frescoes helped establish the Mexican muralism, mural movement in Mexican art, Mexican and international art. Between 1922 and 1953, Rivera painted mural ...
and
Frida Kahlo Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo y Calderón (; 6 July 1907 – 13 July 1954) was a Mexican painter known for her many portraits, self-portraits, and works inspired by the nature and artifacts of Mexico. Inspired by Culture of Mexico, the country' ...
, in San Francisco (1941). SF Museum.
Photograph of Johnny Kan
and John C. Young seated with others at a large dining table featuring Chinese Lazy Susans. ''Smithsonian'' magazine. *
A glimpse back at San Francisco's Chinatown

Recipe: Johnny Kan's Coriander Chicken Salad (So See Gai)
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kan, Johnny Writers from San Francisco American writers of Chinese descent 1900s births 1972 deaths 1953 establishments in California American cookbook writers American restaurateurs American food writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century American businesspeople 20th-century American male writers American male non-fiction writers