Madeline Wong, the matriarch of Saugus restaurant Kowloon, died Wednesday evening. She was 95.
To the eating public, Wong’s long life was tied to the restaurant. Kowloon traces its origins to The Mandarin House, a small eatery that her parents opened in 1950 and could seat just 50 customers. Wong and her husband, William, acquired the restaurant in 1958 and transformed it into the Route 1 landmark whose presence has since dominated the stretch of highway.
Kowloon is a reminder of a past America, one fascinated by the gaseous colors and jagged angles of Googie architecture. It was a driving culture whose experience on the road, in those cars, was linked to the wonder of towering roadside attractions.
Kowloon has managed to stay open for over 60 years, and in the process has become one of the last remaining restaurants of its kind — the kind of restaurant that can seat upward of 1,200 people, and the kind of restaurant that makes the uninitiated wonder “what is that?” as it beckons from the side of the road, asking you to indulge in its themed settings. The Wongs didn’t simply build a Chinese restaurant with Kowloon. They built an experience.
“I was told that she had a prior job with Sun Life Insurance Company,“ said waiter Bobby Wong (not to be confused with current Kowloon owner and Madeline’s grandson Bob Wong). “At the time, Sun Life did not believe in female sales reps for the company. Consequently, she went and worked for John Hancock — that turned out to be a huge mistake for Sun Life, because every single year she was in a multimillion dollar sales club. … Mrs. Wong was the premiere sales agent for John Hancock.”
It was during her time as an insurance agent that she and her husband began growing their restaurant, drawing aesthetic inspiration from their honeymoon trip to Hawaii. They renamed their spot to Kowloon — the name of the Hong Kong Peninsula through which William passed as he fled China in 1939.
Wong is survived by a large family: six children, 15 grandchildren, and 23 great-grandchildren. But her staff — the restaurant employs between 150 and 200 people — remembers her fondly, as well.
“The family was great to the community and employees,” recalled John Chang, the operations manager who’s been with the restaurant for almost 40 years. “Of course, Madeline was the backbone of the restaurant too. She and her husband did a great job. There is a lot of loyal employees that follow them always to the end.”
Lunch rush on the day after Wong’s death was a moderately busy affair. Staff juggled a number of condolence calls and flower deliveries for the mourning family. A great deal of patrons crowded the horseshoe-bar, while pairs of diners sidled into booths in one of the dining rooms. One diner explained that though she and her family moved away, they always return to Kowloon at least twice a year: for her birthday and Mother’s Day. Another diner explained that her companion, who is from Florida, makes it a point to dine at Kowloon whenever she comes to visit.
The future of the restaurant is planned to look much different from its present. The current owner, Bobby Wong, has acknowledged a need to downsize the restaurant from its current seating capacity of 1,200 to 350. Parts of the property will be sold, and mixed-use developments will rise up in their place.
But the future is not the present, and the day after Madeline's death, business was humming along. Cars peeled off of Route 1 dropping off passengers and filling parking spaces.
“Not many mega restaurants are surviving,” said Chang. “But lucky us, knock on wood, we’re still very popular, still doing the right thing, keeping quality up, and keeping customer demand.”
Unsurprising, this is the house Madeline built.