A recent postcard I picked up off of eBay:
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?
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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...