Palo Alto's Ming's restaurant to close its doors

PALO ALTO, Calif. (KGO) -- Restaurants come and go, but when a 58-year-old institution closes its doors, fans flock to re-live special memories and to have one more taste of a favorite dish. The closing of Ming's is bittersweet for many on the peninsula.

Many of Ming's employees have worked here for decades, eclipsed only by patrons who have been regulars even longer.

After 58 years, the Palo Alto institution is bowing to development. The large, 500-seat restaurant will make way for a four-story hotel. Ming's will return as a 150-seat restaurant inside the hotel, but that's two years from now, ending a Foung Family tradition.

"It's been something we've done pretty much every week since I was born. It's a pretty standard family... Foung Family tradition," Monique Foung, a second-generation Ming's customer, said.

Customer Norman Koo says he's going to miss Ming's signature Chinese chicken salad. He told ABC7 News, "Its dressing has like a special kind of mustard with some trace of wasabi taste in there, and that unique taste I've never seen it in the rest of the Bay Area."

The closure will mean 49 people will lose their jobs. Waiter Tony Hsien said, "So I'm going to retire after Sunday. It's my turn, waiting for 40 years."

Ming's provided many immigrants with work. Head dim sum chef Vincent Li has been at Ming's for 29 years.

Ming's restaurant owner Vicky Ching said, "They will take a rest. They will take a rest for a short time, and when the restaurant reopens, I hope many of them will come back to work for me."

Martha Dunn was a Ming's waitress 39 years ago to help pay her husband's way through Stanford medical school. She told ABC7 News, "We had our wedding reception here. It was the first time Ming's had ever done a wedding reception, and I said, 'Would you be willing to do it? And they said, 'Yeah, we'll give it a try,' and it started a bunch of wedding receptions for them."

There were also parties to mark birthdays and the arrival of newborns with a traditional Chinese red egg and ginger party. It all ends Sunday until the new Ming's version 2.0 arrives in a couple of years.