Eggrolls and Egg Foo Young

For this week's Postcard Friendship Friday I am recycling something I wrote about last summer. I hope you newcomers enjoy reading about a favorite restaurant and those who have read it before, I hope you will forgive me for not offering something new.

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If polled, I think my siblings and cousins would vote just like me on at least one issue...which restaurant would you consider your family's favorite while growing up. I imagine we would all answer at once without a second thought. Joy Young's, we would smile and shout in unison.


As a child I remember going there for many Sunday dinners. Once, the whole family celebrated granddaddy's birthday there, maybe his seventieth. It seems like we always ordered Chop Suey Chow Mein or Egg Foo Young. Thinking about that food has the power to make my mouth water still. Their eggrolls were the best I have ever eaten. One or two local restaurants have come close since, but no one has ever made them better.

Joy Young Restaurant was a downtown Birmingham institution beginning in 1919 and remaining there until it moved to another location sometime after 1973. I actually found a website dedicated to this culinary favorite. The site states the move happened sometime in the 60s, but I know for sure this is not true. How do I know? Because the downtown location was the site of my engagement and that was in 1973. We sat in a booth on the mezzanine. It was behind those brown curtains that he proposed to me. You can see the booths on the postcards. Look for the brown box looking things.

As I typed my memory of that engagement night, suddenly I pictured another family meal there. This one was on an Easter in 1978. Somewhere there is a picture of me and the boys at the table. I also remember taking my oldest son there when he was small enough to sit in a highchair. He probably wasn't much older than 1 yr. We gave him rice to feed himself. He made such a huge mess on the floor that we left the waiter a huge tip.

My boys, Easter 1978

Speaking of waiters, they had all been there for years and years. They wore red suits with big lapels (think bell hop in a luxury hotel) and their right arms draped with a white linen towel. The waiters were black men, no women, no Chinese, but the woman who sat in the box between the in and out doors at the front and took your money was Chinese. I remember she always wore her hair in a bun.

See the box thing by the window, the Chinese cashier
with a bun sat there and surveyed her domain.

Funny, the more I think about the restaurant the tinier the details I remember.

My ex husband had NEVER eaten Chinese food until I took him there when we were dating. He was so deprived. I felt it was my duty to introduce him to the good things in life.

When the restaurant moved, after 1978 it seems, we followed it. When I had my last son in 1984, my husband picked up egg rolls and brought them up to the hospital room. ( the new location was nearby) We continued to dine here with the family until it made it's final move.

So sad that good things don't stay the same forever. All that is left are the good memories and a few postcards.

The caption on the back of this 1930s circa postcard reads "Ole China wiseyman say: No can stand one foot on top two boat. Me, Joe and Loo sabe wiseyman wely good. Allo time take care me business lestland. No tly take notha man business. LOOK out good behind, take care, buy numba one good wegabel, meat any kind, take care cook, waita, dishwashy, no can foolem customa sasify, get plenty good flen." (the owner's American last name was Joe)

My, my, how times have changed.