Page 31 - 01-Jan-Feb-2025

HOSPITALITY
“IF YOU HAVE
A SIMPLE
LIFE, YOU CAN STILL SHINE.”
Amy Quon is The Boss, and remains the face
of one of Edmonton’s most enduring restaurants
Hair and makeup Tiiu Vuorensola
E
arlier this year, Chicken
for Lunch offered its
final noon-time service.
People waited in line for
more than two hours to get the famous dry
spicy chicken, one last time.
Amy Quon, who opened the downtown
spot in 1992, admitted the final day was
emotional.
“I don’t feel that I inspire people, but
I feel that people inspire me,” she says.
“I’m not a city-builder. I’m not a life-
saving doctor. I am not the founder of a
charity. But I make genuine connections
to everyday people.
“On the last closing day, I was over-
whelmed and so impressed by the love,
devotion and support.”
Of course, Quon is doing anything but
fading away. She’s still the matriarch
of The Lingnan, Edmonton’s second-
longest standing restaurant (next to the
Commodore, which opened in 1942).
The Lingnan is currently in its 77th
year of operation, and Quon says she fully
expects to be in the restaurant when it
celebrates its one-century milestone.
She came to Canada from Hong Kong
in 1980, to study at what was then known
as Concordia College. It was in Edmonton
where she met her future husband, Kinman,
who had been a partner in the family
restaurant since 1976 (he became the sole
owner in 2002).
She launched Chicken for Lunch a
dozen years after her arrival, but also
wanted to help her husband with The
Lingnan. At first, he refused, but eventually
she started working there on weekends,
greeting customers and becoming the face
of the restaurant. She jokes that “I own
the owner.”
Over the years, she’s seen customers
who first came in accompanied by their
moms and dads now bringing in families
of their own. Recently, someone celebrated
their 93rd birthday at the restaurant,
with generations of family members at
the table.
“It made me so happy to see it, that they
made us a part of their family,” she says.
There are diners who come into the
restaurant to see “Mrs. Quon” and the rest
of the family. In 2009, The Lingnan was
the setting for season three of the Food
Network series, The Family Restaurant.
That led to a spin-off CityTV/Rogers series,
The Quon Dynasty, which aired in 2011.
With the advent of myriad streaming
services, TV programs never die. They
can be found somewhere. So maybe it
shouldn’t come as a surprise that, more
than a decade after the shows aired, the
restaurant still gets visitors who want to
take photos with the Quons. She says that
the restaurant recently hosted a visitor
from Alaska who was a big fan, and there
were diners who came from Shanghai
just to see the place where the show was
filmed. They had saved up just to fly to
Edmonton to see The Lingnan and the
family they’d watched on their TV screens.
Quon recalls that when The Family
Restaurant first aired on The Food Network,
they watched it and her son, Miles,
believed they would make great stars
for the show. His mom laughed it off,
saying they were just a simple family in
a simple business.
But then the producers did come
calling; they’d heard about the Quons,
The Lingnan and thought the family
would be good for television. Why? A
multi-generational business is a great
incubating space for the kind of conflict
that makes for great reality television.
Amy, Kinman, Miles, daughter Mandy
and youngest son, Marty, all met the
challenge. (In fact, Amy asks during the
interview that I should go and reassure
Mandy that her mom “did good” when it
came to prepping for Edify’s visit.)
“My life is so simple, that’s what I
thought,” Quon recalls of the television
offer. “Who would want to watch me on
the TV and see nothing happen?”
But Quon’s gregarious nature won a lot
of fans.
This magazine has featured restaurants
since the day it was first published. We
have seen a lot come and go. And many of
the restaurants we’ve praised have later
changed menus, concepts and chefs, or
even closed their doors. The restaurant
business is very much here today, gone
tomorrow. So, the Quons and the Lingnan
are a rarity — an Edmonton mainstay that
should be celebrated.
“It’s about carrying a positive attitude
towards everyone,” says Quon. “You make
them feel important, and win their loyal-
ty. You connect with them through their
hearts.”
by STEVEN SANDOR
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