Sam Woo Restaurant - Description

Description

The first delicatessen was opened in 1979 by an elderly immigrant from Hong Kong in the Los Angeles Chinatown and later spread to other locations in California, including Monterey Park and Alhambra. The first Sam Woo has since relocated to a newer building within Chinatown to include a restaurant and delicatessen, and remains amongst the most popular eateries in the community. There was one in Montebello when 99 Ranch Market operated there (under its original name, 99 Price Market), but the restaurant changed its name when one of the employees bought the restaurant from the owner. (The menu is still the same under the name A-1.) The 99 Ranch Market closed because it failed to develop into a major commercial and cultural hub for the pan-Chinese diaspora like those in Monterey Park and San Gabriel and because of property management issues; several Asian stores still exist to cater to the significant local population, including Chinese restaurants and an East-West Bank. In 2004 a Sam Woo opened in the suburb of Covina, California, which does not have a large Chinese-speaking population, but it failed the following year as well (it was replaced by a similar, but family-owned restaurant).

There are two types of Sam Woo restaurants. The first is aptly named Sam Woo BBQ Restaurant (香港三和燒臘麵家; Pinyin: Xiānggǎng Sānhé Shāolà Miànjiā, Cantonese: siu laap min gaa). It is a noodle house specializing in Hong Kong-style barbecue and is typically small. It offers a delicatessen with roast duck, soy sauce chicken, BBQ pork, suckling pig, roast pig, congee, yang chow fried rice, chow fun, and bowls of won ton noodles on its menu. You can order take-out, and cash is only the accepted payment. The second, Sam Woo Seafood Restaurant (三和魚翅海鮮酒家; Pinyin: Sānhé Yúchì Hǎixiān Jiǔjiā, Cantonese: som whoa hoy seen joy gah) is an upscale restaurant that serves dim sum and Cantonese-style seafood dishes, such as lobster. The seafood restaurants have large dining rooms and can typically handle banquets for parties, weddings, reunions, and other special events. These restaurants take credit cards.

The restaurant chain tends to operate in suburban "Chinatown" areas; within Southern California, mostly in communities where there are many immigrants from Taiwan, such as Rowland Heights and Irvine. Several, but not all, Sam Woo Restaurants in Southern California are located in shopping centers anchored by 99 Ranch Market stores. The popular Sam Woo BBQ Restaurant as well as anchor tenant 99 Ranch Market have also made the developments of the spectacular Chinatown, Las Vegas possible.

Sam Woo Restaurants are generally popular even though long waits to be seated are common. Like most Chinese restaurants, they are also popular with non-Chinese-speaking patrons such as Mexican Americans, Filipino Americans and White Americans. However, catering to the tastes of Chinese-speaking customers, many of the specials tend to be posted only in Chinese.

In 1992, presidential candidate Bill Clinton held a fundraiser at a now defunct Sam Woo Seafood Restaurant in San Gabriel, California. In 2003, it also received media attention when the same Sam Woo restaurant and surrounding Chinese businesses in San Gabriel were at the center of the SARS panic, due to an Internet-based rumor, eventually reducing customer patronage. Unlike in Hong Kong or Toronto, there was no actual verified case of SARS reported in San Gabriel or Los Angeles. The restaurant was highly popular for its dim sum.

In Southern California, hoping to capitalize on the success of Sam Woo Restaurants, restaurateurs have opened imitations with similar names in English and Chinese. Examples include the long-gone Sam Doo Restaurant in San Gabriel and the current S.W. Seafood Restaurant in Irvine. In the early 1990s, a similar concept to Sam Woo Restaurant, the now defunct Luk Yue Restaurant also started in Chinatown (LA), and like Sam Woo, it expanded into the Chinese community of Monterey Park, California, Rowland Heights, and Cerritos, California. The chain has since folded while Sam Woo Restaurant remains popular in the Chinese communities of Southern California and Toronto.

There was a popular multistory Chinese restaurant in Chinatown, San Francisco called Sam Wo. Despite having a similar name and foods, it is not part of the chain in Southern California and should not be confused with it.