Saying Goodbye To King Yum

Last October, we had to say goodbye to Palace Of Wong, one of our two favorite Chinese restaurants. It had been around for 48 years. The news came, last week, that our other favorite, King Yum, would be closing its doors this month after being open for over 60 years. The story was, basically, the same. The son of the original owner wished to retire and no one in the family was interested in taking over. Like Palace Of Wong, they did not sell the restaurant, instead deciding to close a business that had always belonged to one family. This was the restaurant where we traveled an hour to visit to celebrate Monica's birthday every year. We went other nights, too. With the exact last night still unknown, we knew we had to visit King Yum one last time. Since we were off, again, on a Friday, we got an early start and arrived before 5pm to avoid the crowd that would be there for Friday Night Karaoke for the last time. 

The familiar awning of King Yum

The iconic King Yum. It's face will soon change dramatically. There's Monica on the left "patiently" waiting for Rob to stop taking pictures. We have been told that this building will soon operate as a senior center during the day and, perhaps, a caterer in the evening.

We almost take a photo in front of the waterfall and beside the totem pole when we come here. Monica got to debut the new tiki pocketbook that she created. 

We always get an "exotic" drink here but this is the first time they were not served in tiki mugs. The tiki mugs were taken home, without permission, by patrons once the news of their closing surfaced. We still enjoyed our King Yum Special and Zombie! 

The King Yum menu

The selection of "exotic" drinks inside of the King Yum menu.

A tiki god watches over the tables

Another tiki god

Another tiki god

Another tiki god

A close-up of one of the tiki gods. He smiled for the picture. We asked what would happen to the tiki masks and was told that a customer had already reserved all of them once King Yum closed.

The bar area is great. We were told that the lights were not allowed to be taken or sold. They were to be transferred to the new owners of the property. This bartender lives in the same town as we do.

It was a great night and, although it was sad to think that this would be our last time here, we had plenty of reasons to smile.

Our three day weekend would continue on Saturday when we would begin our saling for the weekend. Friday did not have any sales of interest. Saturday only had one so we did not have to rack our brains to figure out our route. There was only one place to go.

The one Saturday sale was described as "cleaning out mom's house". It mentioned records and it mentioned Christmas and it was close to us. We would in fifteen minutes and find a sale that was partially outdoors and partially indoors. There were a few old things but not a lot. We left with two records.

We had one sale listed for Sunday, too. It was less than ten minutes away from our house and it was listed as an estate sale. Amongst the items listed for sale were vintage bedroom sets and a 1950's red formica table. We would not have room for either of these but a house with those things inside might have a lot of smaller things we might want. We did encounter a small line (in the back of the house where they were allowing entry). We learned that the house was built in 1915 and its owner, a 96 year old woman, had just moved in with her daughter in Oklahoma. We were hopeful now and we were soon inside the house. 

This was the first room we entered and, having now seen the 1950's red table and all of the old cabinets in the kitchen (some wooden, some metal), we knew it had potential.

 Having seen the mounted pencil sharpener (always a good sign), we were ven more hopeful!

There were three floors to search and lots of rooms. They weren't especially picture worthy but they were nice. Nothing was cluttered so we did not spend a lot of time searching. Most of what was there was in plain view. All except for the old cookbooks which were in a cabinet in a small pantry that could have gone unnoticed...but not by us. Aside from the cookbooks, we also found some other books, some records, some Christmas things and a plastic chicken! 

Here is what we found over the weekend:

Some records

Some Hawaiian records

Cookbooks

More cookbooks

More cookbooks

How And Why books from the 1960's

More books and two old kitchen appliance manuals

Two old Long Island postcards

Two old turquoise couch pillows and an old plastic chicken that lays eggs

Old Christmas candles (all of them are Gurley candles except the big snowman which is a Will & Baumer candle), some old reindeer, a Lefton Christmas mug (marked Japan) and a small Santa (marked Japan) 

Although there were only two sales this weekend, we had lots of fun and, of course, being able to visit King Yum one more time meant so much to us. We will miss them a lot but they gave us memories to last a lifetime...a lifetime of memories shared together.