Route 1 Icon Kowloon Will Lose More Than Two-Thirds of Its Seating | Eater Boston

"Located on Route 1, this gargantuan, totem-festooned restaurant — a kitsch-soaked icon of 1950s tiki culture that has been operating in one form or another for more than 70 years — is being downsized from about 1,200 seats to roughly 350. The Wong family, whose matriarchal founders Chun Sau Chin and Tow See Chin opened it in 1950 as the Mandarin House (40–50 seats) and whose Madeline and Bill Wong expanded and renamed it after buying the business in 1958, plans to build two residential buildings on the site; eventually the current building will be torn down and replaced by a roughly 20,000-square-foot restaurant space with apartments on the upper floors, and the restaurant will be temporarily relocated elsewhere on the property during construction (likely a couple of years away and still awaiting permits). Long cherished as a landmark along the highway and photographed alongside orange dinosaurs, a “leaning tower of pizza” and other roadside curiosities, some longtime patrons lament that a much smaller venue won’t feel the same, while the owners argue the reduced footprint is what they can realistically maintain as they age and as the next generation steps back." - Stephanie Carter