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Kai’s father, grown up and married, joined him in 1952. Kai’s grandfather returned to America in 1950, settling in Stockton, and opened the Golden Star Café. Kai’s father, though only 2 ½ years old at the time, vividly remembered his family scrambling outside just before the building collapsed.
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They ran a store until the Great Quake of 1906.
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Kai Chan holds a picture of his parents, Jimmy Yoke and Bo Lan Chan, who ran the cafe from 1970 until 1990 (MICHAEL FITZGERALD/CONTRIBUTOR)įrom Xinhui the Chans immigrated to San Francisco. Some of the Golden Star’s recipes trace to Kai’s great-grandfather, who in the late 1800s ran a café in Xinhui, China. “Next month, 43 years,” Kai Chan said of all the time he’s put in. Kai and Elaine Chan are selling the Golden Star Café, ending a 72-year-run in which three generations of Chans have satisfied south Stockton’s craving for egg foo young.Ī San Francisco buyer will keep the café open, which is good, but without the Chan family slinging potstickers from behind the 12-seat lunch counter, a tradition since 1950. Feature photo: Kai Chan stands outside of the Golden Star Cafe, which three generations of his family have run.
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