Newark Restaurant Closes After 53 Years

NEWARK, CA — Generations of Newark and Tri-City area residents have enjoyed family meals and festivities at Jade Palace in Newark. The restaurant, known for its old-style Chinese food — chop suey, chow mein, beef and broccoli, sweet-and-sour pork, boiled noodles, wontons in broth and Mongolian beef — closed in December after 53 years in business.

The family tried to keep the business going after patriarch Edwin Yee Wing Lee died last winter, according to the Mercury News, as he approached his 90th birthday. The restaurant had always been run by Lee along with his wife Chui Ngan Lee, sons Phillip and Jimmy, and daughter Susan.

"My dad, he was going to be 90 pretty soon, but he was still the Energizer Bunny, " said Phillip. "He was one of those kinds of guys who lived to work — for 50-odd years, he’d been working here every single day."

The kids inherited their father's work ethic. In fact, Phillip said that he started working at the restaurant when he was 10 years old.

The family is now retiring.

Jade Palace, in the Old Town Center on Newark Boulevard, will be replaced by an Indian kitchen.

Read more in the Mercury News.