Pekin Noodle Parlor (built 1909) is the second oldest continuously operating

Chinese restaurant A Chinese restaurant is a restaurant that serves Chinese cuisine. Most of them are in the Cantonese cuisine, Cantonese style, due to the history of the Overseas Chinese, Chinese diaspora, though other Chinese regional cuisine, regional cuisin ...

in the United States, located in

Butte, Montana Butte ( ) is a consolidated city-county and the county seat of Silver Bow County, Montana, United States. In 1977, the city and county governments consolidated to form the sole entity of Butte-Silver Bow. The city covers , and, according to the 2 ...

. The restaurant was founded in its current location in 1911 by Hum Yow and Tam Kwong Yee. Along with the Wah Chong Tai Company mercantile building (1891) and the

Mai Wah Noodle Parlor The Mai Wah Museum is located in Butte, Montana, United States, is dedicated to documenting the history of Asian people in the Rocky Mountains The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountai ...

(1909), the Pekin Noodle Parlor represents one of the last surviving properties from the original

Chinatown Chinatown ( zh, t=唐人街) is the catch-all name for an ethnic enclave of Chinese people located outside Greater China, most often in an urban setting. Areas known as "Chinatown" exist throughout the world, including Europe, Asia, Africa, O ...

neighborhood in the Butte–Anaconda Historic District. In 2023, the restaurant was named an American Classic by the

James Beard Foundation The James Beard Foundation is an American non-profit culinary arts organization based in New York City. It was named after James Beard, a food writer, teacher, and cookbook author. Its programs include guest-chef dinners to scholarships for asp ...

Background

Placer gold mining in the late 19th century brought Chinese immigrants to Butte to work the mines. However,

anti-Chinese sentiment Anti-Chinese sentiment (also referred to as Sinophobia) is the fear or dislike of Chinese people or Chinese culture. It is frequently directed at Overseas Chinese, Chinese minorities which live outside Greater China and it involves immigratio ...

stoked by labor unions later forced the Chinese out of the mining industry.

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, within the US Department of the Interior. The service manages all List ...

Butte-Anaconda Historic District, Montana
. NPS. Retrieved June 21, 2020. They eventually settled in Uptown Butte in the 1880s, and opened businesses in a Chinatown neighborhood bordered by West Galena Street in the North, South Main Street in the East, West Mercury Street in the South, and Colorado Street in the West. "China Alley" became a thriving community which may have reached a population of 600 at its height.Schneider, Carrie (Summer, 2004)
"Remembering Butte's Chinatown"
''Montana: The Magazine of Western History''. Montana Historical Society. 54 (2): 67-69.Kentucky, Ed (January 5, 2016)
"At the Pekin Noodle Parlor in Butte, history's on the menu"
''KPAX''. Retrieved June 21, 2020. Even though attorney Wilbur F. Sanders successfully defended the Chinese people of Butte in '' Hum Fay, et al. v. Baldwin'' (also known as the Chinese Boycott Case), the majority of Chinese people left Butte after labor unions organized a sustained campaign of major boycotts of Butte's Chinatown lasting many years in the late 1890s. By 1940, only 92 Chinese people remained.

History

The Tam family left their home in

Guangzhou Guangzhou, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Canton or Kwangchow, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Guangdong Provinces of China, province in South China, southern China. Located on the Pearl River about nor ...

and emigrated to Montana in the 1860s. The elder Tam found work shipping supplies to Chinese communities on the west coast, while his son made his way to Butte in the 1890s and founded the Quong Fong Laundry, which continued serving the community for another fifty years at its South Arizona Street location, Baucus, Max (2011)
"Recognizing the Peking Noodle Parlor"
. ''Congressional Record''. USGPO. pp. 9877-9878. Retrieved June 22, 2020. as well as a spice import and export business. Hum Yow, a Tam family relative and California-born, first-generation Chinese, originally started Pekin Noodle Parlor on West Mercury Street. It moved in 1911 to the second floor of a brick building on South Main Street near the corner of West Galena. It was built by architect G. E. DeSnell, designed for Butte attorney F. T. McBride, and completed in 1909.Gibson, Richard (November 22, 2013)
"Pekin Noodle Parlor (117 S Main Street)"
. Butte-Anaconda National Historic Landmark District. Retrieved June 21, 2020. Family relatives Hum Yow and Tam Kwong Yee soon established themselves as businessmen at the new location in Uptown Butte. When the restaurant first opened, "it catered to a diverse clientele of miners, theater-goers, and wealthy citizens. Then, as now, the menu featured Chinese American classics like chow mein, chop suey, and egg foo young."Jack, Meghan E. (Spring 2020)
"Exhibit Review (Chow: Making the Chinese American Restaurant)"
. ''The Journal of American Folklore''. University of Illinois Press. 133 (528): 249-251. The restaurant offered a wide variety of dishes on its menu, but customers preferred their wet noodles ('' yaka mein'') and

chop suey Chop suey (usually pronounced ) is a dish from American Chinese cuisine and other forms of overseas Chinese cuisine, generally consisting of meat (usually chicken, pork, beef, shrimp or fish) and eggs, cooked quickly with vegetables such as bea ...

. Pekin Noodle Parlor also offered takeout and delivery.Hazlett, Kehli Kankelborg (2013
"The Foodways of Butte, Montana: Food and culture in an industrial American City"
.

Montana Technological University Montana Technological University, popularly known as Montana Tech, is a public university in Butte, Montana. Founded in 1900 as the "Montana State School of Mines", the university became affiliated with the University of Montana in 1994. After un ...

. Thesis. p. 24, 31. The restaurant installed their first sign in 1916 and added neon some time later. Neon signs became popular after World War I and were used to attract customers. Ding Kuen Tam, the grandson of Tam Kwong Lee, left China and came to the U.S. in 1947. He became known as Danny Wong and purchased the business from its founder, his great-uncle Hum Yow, when he retired. Wong ran the establishment for more than six decades with his wife, Sharon Chu. Chu died in 2014 and Wong died in 2020. Their son Jerry Tam now runs the restaurant and has said his father's immigration story is that of the

American Dream The "American Dream" is a phrase referring to a purported national ethos of the United States: that every person has the freedom and opportunity to succeed and attain a better life. The phrase was popularized by James Truslow Adams during the ...

Layout and design

Patrons enter the second floor restaurant from the ground floor on South Main Street, walking up a flight of stairs to a door on the left. The door opens into a hallway with salmon-orange colored beadboard partitions separating 17 eating rooms and booths on either side with privacy curtains for each room. The dining tables and chairs in each room date back to 1916. The central hallway is lined with Chinese lanterns hanging from the ceiling. Servers deliver food to each booth with metal carts.McCumber, David (March 1, 2020)
"A tradition of hospitality: Pekin Noodle Parlor is a James Beard semifinalist"
. ''Montana Standard''. Retrieved June 21, 2020. The original design, for the first 50 years, was based on a light lime green color scheme with dark green

velveteen Velveteen (or velveret) is a type of woven textile, fabric with a dense, even, short Pile (textile), pile. It has less sheen than velvet because the pile in velveteen is cut from weft threads, while that of velvet is cut from warp threads. Velvet ...

curtains. It was repainted to its current orange color after the owner read an article in ''Bon Appetit'' magazine that said a "salmon color whets people's appetites". The first level was at one point an herbal shop and the sub-level hosted illegal gaming. File:The_Pekin_Noodle_Parlor_was_built_in_1909_at_115-119_South_Main_Street._Originally_it_housed_a_gambling_room_and_saloon_in_the_east_section_of_the_ground_floor,_and_a_Chinese_HAER_MONT,47-BUT,1-75.tif, Restaurant exterior in 1979 Pekin Noodle Parlor Menu.jpg, The menu as of November 2020

References

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Background

History

Layout and design

References

Further reading