‘Mama’ Quon; Chinatown Restaurateur

The legendary “Mama” Quon, a fixture of Los Angeles’ Chinatown after its 1930s move from what is now Union Station to the Hill Street and Broadway area, and matriarch of the Grand Star Restaurant family, has died. She was 99.

Quon, whose formal name was Yiu Hai Seto Quon, died July 9 in Montebello.

She was one of the first Chinese women to arrive in Los Angeles’ original Chinatown when she immigrated in 1922 with her Chinese American husband, the late Him Gin Quon. She was the daughter-in-law of Quon Soon Doon, whose Tuey Far Low restaurant at Alameda and Marchessault streets (where Union Station now stands) was one of the earliest local Chinese eateries.

Quon and her husband, who lived in a three-bedroom house on Figueroa Street, in 1946 established the Quon Bros. Grand Star Restaurant on Sun Mun Way in Central Plaza between Hill and Broadway. The restaurant replaced a penny arcade a few years after 28 so-called “founders” established the pagoda-roofed commercial and tourist center June 25, 1938.

Developing since the 1860s when laborers were brought in to build a wagon road near Newhall, Los Angeles’ Chinese community had originally settled on the Union Station site near Olvera Street. But by 1934, they were evicted for construction of the current railway terminal.

Four years later the Los Angeles Chinatown Corp. opened “New Chinatown” with 18 stores and a bean cake factory centered in the Hill-to-Broadway plaza. (Younger generations of Chinese Americans now refer to that area as “Old Chinatown” as the community continues to expand throughout the Los Angeles Basin.)

Quon was among the handful of surviving founders honored 11 years ago by the Chinese Historical Society of Southern California during the area’s 50th anniversary observance.

She was also one of only four of the city’s Chinese pioneers honored in 1994 by artist and photographer Carol Nye in the photo mural series “Chinese American Women of Los Angeles” for the Metro Plaza Hotel in Chinatown.

Nye told The Times in 1994 that she honored Quon and the others to offer contemporary Asian American art in the area, raise community awareness about Chinese American women’s historic contributions, provide role models for young people and counter stereotypes portraying Asian women as “sensual objects or housewives.”

Quon was the chef at her family’s restaurant for decades, and one of the first to popularize Chinese food by adding her own American touches. By her 90s, she spent part of her time sitting near the door greeting customers, but she did not fully leave her kitchen until felled by a broken hip two years ago.

She gained fame--as did her restaurant--for her “Mama Quon specials,” including oxtail soup, pork hash with duck liver, winter melon soup, Peking duck and other Cantonese dishes that fans referred to as “Chinese soul food.” She pan-fried chow mein and egg foo yong for hungry crowds that included such Hollywood celebrities as Charles Bronson and Tony Curtis.

“Mama” to the whole community, she raised seven daughters and the two sons, Wallace and Frank, who still run the family restaurant.

She influenced them all, including widowed son-in-law Jon Hom, a retired San Diego industrial engineer who wrote an innovative cross-cultural cookbook, “Renegade Wok,” in 1997.

“Mama Quon was quite a figure in the restaurant,” Hom told The Times when his book was published. “She has inspired me through the years.”

Quon’s two sons and four of her seven daughters survive, along with 25 grandchildren and 37 great-grandchildren.

The family has asked that any memorial donations be made to the Chinese American Citizen Alliance of Los Angeles.

Funeral services are scheduled for 10 a.m. Saturday at the Wah Wing Sang Mortuary, 611 W. Cesar Chavez Ave., near Chinatown.