A recent postcard I picked up off of eBay:
(MEANS FINE FOOD)
This is one of the new bright lights for dining out, if you happen to be in the Windsor area. Tourists are treated to the finest in Chinese atmosphere and fine food. Your host Chuck Gan will be more than pleased to show you an evening you’ll long remember. Fully licensed.
A big thanks goes out to Ric, who dug up a little information on the place. The Mai-Mai was located at 754 Ouellette Avenue.
Image from Google Streetview
Above is 754 Ouellette Avenue today. Better known as Woody’s Outhouse, the building bears little resemblance to the 1970’s version. I’m so glad Streetview is fianlly live for Windsor.
The Mai-Mai was opened by Joe Gan, who had a long history as a Windsor Restaurateur, having operated the Mandarin on Ouellette and the Windsor Castle Cafe on Chatham St.
It looks like the Mai-Mai operated from about 1968 through 1986. The Gan family also rand the Chinee Villa on Tecumseh Rd. E.
Anyone out there with any memories of the place?
was that facade still up for a while into the 90’s? i remember as a little kid seeing a building downtown that sure looked like (thru the eyes of a child)a steel cage from the road…..this has got to be it.
both my parents worked at Peachey’s roadhouse, which is now the beach a block north and spent alot of time in that area.
I remember this restaurant, and a few others in the downtown core as well. There was also a popular spot in Windsor (exact location slips my mind) called Gan’s Restaurant. Great postcard find Andrew.
you know..dispite the strike, i think Windsor comes off looking pretty damn spiffy on streetveiw. aside from the lack of people (even though freedom fest was happening)it looks great when the sun is out. unfortunatly for someone, in addition to blacking out license plates and faces; the unfortunate soul had to blank out allllllll the “arrbitration will get rid of this” lawn signs thruout the city!
your house looks great Andrew!
I remember that place but I don’t think I was ever in it.
Chinee Villa was very good whne I was a kid but I haven’t eat there in 20 years.
I remember the Mai-Mai, I often went there with my parents on the weekends and we always sat in one of the booths along the side.
Chinee Villa closed about 5 years ago and is currently abandoned/derelict…exterior decor and signage is still intact.
My parents took me and my brother there when we were both young children (mid to late 60’s). I think the steamed white rice was the highlight of eating there for two kids as that was considered pretty exotic by standards back then! That and the fortune cookies.
At least Woody’s has some windows facing the street, I was reading how many buildings on Ouellette and Pelisher had no Windows at all. I guess that was a big 70’s fad..
In a previous post I recall regular contributor “RWS” saying something about Ontario liquor laws in the ’60s-70s prohibited establishments from having street-facing windows if they served alcohol, which resulted in many of the cavern-like restaurants we have come to know over the years.
One of my fav’s when I was a kid! My grandparents liked to take us there on special occasions once in a while. I believe that facade was still there through a good part of the 90’s.
Never was inside the Mai-Mai but does anyone remember Pekar’s Restaurant? I think that it was in this location. 1950s for sure. Maybe into the early 1960s. They had a great sign, “Pekar’s” in flowing script with sequentially flashing lights. Very impressive to my young eyeballs.
Wow !!! Ouellette & Wyondotte Streets look like a war zone !!!
Re : the Mai Mai… never went there … however , does anyone remember a Chinese Restaurant at Ouelette & Riverside (south west corner). It was on the second or third floor…a long way up… however worth the climb for the tasty eggrolls & Won Ton soup !!!
Carole Anne was it the Paradise?
Scotty: Gan’s Restaurant was on Pitt St E across from Adelman’s Dept Store. It was in the downstairs of Windsor Recreational??? which had 5 pin and 10 pin bowling on the upper floors. It burnt down around 1976. Loved Gan’s because it had a chinese buffet.
YES !!! It was the Paradise !!!
Windsor Recreational….that was the name of that place!!! When I tell my friends that there was an upstairs bowling alley downtown, they think I’m crazy…
I was working downtown at 364 Ouellette, and I would connect with a close relative around 5 p.m. about that time each weekday, at a dining room called “The Geranium Tea Room”, west side of Pelissier, south of Park St. A bungalow style frame house, with freshly cooked, delicious so-called “comfort food”, with tables complete with linen table cloths. This existed for almost all of the 1950s, perhaps most of the 1960s, or even later. It was patronized by mostly regulars, drawn from neighbourhood downtown businesses and office workers from the Canada building. The owners were always out of sight working the kitchen, but the two adjacent rooms were served by about 4 or so long time waitresses. Another small memory from a transplanted Windsorite; the big memories were the exploding factory on Campbell Ave./Wyandotte, and the fire at the Metropolitan store on Ouellette in about 1961. The Ford strike of circa 1946 was quite nasty and deadly in my young mind then, as now.
The Paradise was popular with Windsor Star newsroom staff; the booths gave some privacy if yuo weren’t dead sober after spending time at Lee’s Imperial House (don’t ask me how I know) and the food was filling and not too costly. I remember the egg rolls, which were great.
There was also the Lotus Garden, up Ouellette a few blocks …
Thanks for the Gan’s reference Paula, I remember now – Paris Shoe Repair was in that block as well….
ahh yes, the Lotus Garden… I think that would be in the same location as the present day MANCHESTER PUB on Ouellette Ave. – it was one storefront south of The Radio Tavern circa 1955 – The Lotus Garden was our favourite Friday night family dinner hang in the 1950’s, after we met my Dad coming home from working in Detroit at the tunnel bus depot.
The Paradise Restaurant was in a building that I believe was called The White Building – it burned down in the 80’s, if I recall. I have photos I shot around that time of the facades along Riverside Drive, with the burned out hulk of that building still standing.
I recently found some 8mm film that I shot as a little boy that panned down Ouellette Ave & Maiden Lane, that has a quick glimpse of The Lotus Garden, The Radio Tavern, Banwell Luggage and Gitlins…Across from 500 Ouelette on the same side of the street is a business with a yellow sign called Youngs, and for the life of me, I can’t remember what kind of store it was… a restaurant? furniture store? Maybe someone could chime in with the answer…
In the early 60s, we ate at Gan’s on Pitt a lot of Sundays, but I remember it burning down earlier than mid 70s. Maybe not. I think that’s why we moved over to Mai Mai – same family. They called their fried won-tons “krep-lahch” which are Jewish perogies – go figure! Windsor had a plethora of Chinese restaurants, some of which you wonder did anyone ever go into other than last-call survivors. How about Ing’s on Goyeau and Wyandotte? That place was another world on a Saturday at 3 am with the hookers all ordering from Column B. Then it just disappeared. Last time I looked it was some type of Cuban product store. The Rickshaw on Ouellette south of Giles in the apartment building has lasted a good 30 or more years!
I ate at the Rickshaw about 15 years ago – food was just ok – the place smelled like deep fried everything. It was weird, but still looked the same as it has for years.
What is the oldest, and still operating Chinese Restaurant in Windsor anymore? Does anyone know?? House of Lee on Pelissier? Is that still open?
As a kid, loved the little fountain with the goldfish.
I remember eating at the Mai Mai in 1967 or 1968 as a young teenager. Also, I remember going to Windsor Recreational Bowling because my boyfriend at the time was a pinsetter. It was run by a Greek family, if I’m not mistaken.
You know what really pisses me off is all the rest of ouellette has flowers and streetscaping but between wyandotte and elliot it looks like a no mans land the city does’nt even plant flowers in all those nice planters all thats in there is dead rats garbage and dog shit idon’t understand this city
My girlfriend and I ate at the Mai Mai every weekend back in the mid 70s.never once did we have chinese food there. they had the best veal cutlets and tomato sauce anywhere.now after being married for 36 years we sure would like to get that recipe.I can remember parking in the back because I got kicked out of Mrs Gervais parking spot of Gervais Furs who shared the same parking lot.
I worked at Ing’s delivering food, city wide… shifts started at 3 p.m. and ended at 3 a.m. After a couple years of it, I knew every inch of the city.
Eddie Ing owned Ings… and he also owned Ruby’s, which was popular with Chinese people because it served more authentic Chinese food.
I’ll never forget driving a van full of chinese food to some Walker Road hall for Chinese Businessman’s Banquet… with giant vats of sweet and sour sauce spilling all over the van floor as I turned around corners.
Eddie told me he also owned a restaurant at what I knew as Gateway convenience store and lunch bar, which was located on the northeast corner of Drouillard and Whelpton
Flying Tiger restaurant has been around a very long time, too.