Carrying the Torch | Life-style Media Group
Wan’s Mandarin Home celebrates its sixtieth anniversary this fall, a milestone that represents way over longevity. In an business the place most eating places by no means make it previous a couple of years, the Fort Lauderdale establishment has survived—and thrived—for six many years by staying true to the values established by its founders: serve scrumptious meals with a beneficiant serving to of hospitality.
Initially opened in Miami in 1966 by Chinese language immigrants Lee Pong Wan and his spouse, Cover Wan, the restaurant moved to Broward County in 1977 earlier than settling into its present house at 664 N. Federal Freeway in 2005. Right now, 4 generations of the Wan household have helped form considered one of South Florida’s most beloved Chinese language eating places.
For Alex Kuk, who took over operations from his aunt in 2024, that historical past comes with an infinite sense of accountability.
“I don’t assume I actually understood what legacy meant till I stepped into this function,” Kuk says. “I can’t let my household’s legacy down.”
Kuk factors out the braveness it took his great-grandfather to begin a enterprise in Miami within the Sixties regardless of talking little English. “It has all the time been onerous to open a restaurant,” he says. “I can’t think about what it was like for my great-grandfather. He was daring sufficient to promote within the newspaper, carry relations over from abroad and construct one thing from nothing. That takes grit.”
That grit turned the muse for an institution that has outlasted numerous eating developments. Whereas menus have advanced over time, Kuk says the center of Wan’s stays remarkably unchanged.
“We nonetheless serve Chinese language meals. Most of our recipes haven’t modified. Hospitality hasn’t modified,” he says. “We’ve even gone again to white tablecloths as a result of that’s what my grandfather believed in.”
The chef/proprietor provides that Chinese language meals has all the time occupied a novel place in American tradition. “It feeds a crowd. It travels nicely. Truthfully, it tastes even higher the subsequent day,” he says with amusing. “It has every little thing—greens, rice, protein, candy, bitter, salty. Then you definately end with the fortune cookie. It’s a part of individuals’s reminiscences.”
These reminiscences are what maintain clients returning.
“So many individuals inform me they grew up consuming right here,” Kuk says. “Possibly their household couldn’t afford to exit usually, however after they did, they ordered spare ribs or fried rice. These dishes carry them again to a time when their largest fear was homework. Meals has an unbelievable means to carry these emotions again.”
Though he grew up within the restaurant business, Kuk by no means meant to spend his profession in eating places. He initially enrolled at Nova Southeastern College to review drugs earlier than discovering biology and chemistry weren’t for him. A household pal steered he look into hospitality administration at Florida Worldwide College. “I truly thought he meant hospital administration,” Kuk recollects, laughing.
As an alternative, FIU launched him to the culinary arts via chef Michael Moran’s lessons.
“I realized there have been completely different knives, completely different components, completely different methods. I fell in love with cooking, however much more than that, I fell in love with hospitality. I really like caring for individuals. I really like making somebody’s day.” That zeal finally led him full-circle again to the household enterprise.
Working a 60-year-old restaurant isn’t with out challenges. Labor shortages, rising meals prices, expertise, and altering client habits require fixed adaptation. Kuk embraces innovation—however solely when it serves a function.
“The change needs to be real,” he says. “Each choice needs to be good for the client, good for the employees, good for the model and good for the enterprise. You may’t chase each alternative simply because it’s there.”
Finally, he believes hospitality is what has carried Wan’s via six many years.
“I all the time take into consideration a Maya Angelou quote: Individuals will overlook what you mentioned and what you probably did, however they’ll always remember the way you made them really feel,” Kuk says. “That’s what we do right here. Individuals are available, and so they’re greeted with hugs. They’re handled like household.”
As Wan’s celebrates 60 years, the restaurant continues to be very a lot a household affair. Though his family have formally retired, they’re nonetheless part of the material of Wan’s. “My aunt, uncle and mother now work 4 days every week as a substitute of seven,” he jokes. “This isn’t simply their job. It’s their social life. It’s their guide membership. They really come house from trip early as a result of they wish to be again on the restaurant.”
For Kuk, respecting Wan’s heritage whereas embracing its future is, actually, what he was born to do.
“I want my grandparents and great-grandparents might see what we’ve constructed,” he says. “In our tradition, we honor our ancestors. Each day I stroll into this restaurant, I do not forget that I’m carrying their torch. That’s the legacy I’m attempting to guard.”
