Wan’s Mandarin Home celebrates its sixtieth anniversary this fall, a milestone that represents excess of longevity. In an trade the place most eating places by no means make it previous just a few 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 dwelling at 664 N. Federal Freeway in 2005. Right now, 4 generations of the Wan household have helped form certainly 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 unlimited sense of accountability.
“I don’t assume I really understood what legacy meant till I stepped into this position,” Kuk says. “I can’t let my household’s legacy down.”
Kuk factors out the braveness it took his great-grandfather to start out a enterprise in Miami within the Sixties regardless of talking little English. “It has all the time been exhausting 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, deliver relations over from abroad and construct one thing from nothing. That takes grit.”
That grit grew to become the muse for an institution that has outlasted numerous eating developments. Whereas menus have developed 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 singular place in American tradition. “It feeds a crowd. It travels nicely. Truthfully, it tastes even higher the subsequent day,” he says with fun. “It has all the things—greens, rice, protein, candy, bitter, salty. Then you definately end with the fortune cookie. It’s a part of folks’s reminiscences.”
These reminiscences are what maintain clients returning.
“So many individuals inform me they grew up consuming right here,” Kuk says. “Perhaps their household couldn’t afford to exit usually, however once they did, they ordered spare ribs or fried rice. These dishes deliver them again to a time when their greatest fear was homework. Meals has an unbelievable means to deliver these emotions again.”
Though he grew up within the restaurant trade, Kuk by no means meant to spend his profession in eating places. He initially enrolled at Nova Southeastern College to review medication earlier than discovering biology and chemistry weren’t for him. A household pal recommended he look into hospitality administration at Florida Worldwide College. “I really thought he meant hospital administration,” Kuk remembers, laughing.
As a substitute, FIU launched him to the culinary arts by way of chef Michael Moran’s courses.
“I discovered there have been completely different knives, completely different substances, completely different strategies. I fell in love with cooking, however much more than that, I fell in love with hospitality. I like taking good care of folks. I 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 objective.
“The change must be real,” he says. “Each choice must be good for the shopper, good for the workers, 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 by way of six many years.
“I all the time take into consideration a Maya Angelou quote: Folks will neglect what you stated 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. Folks are available in, 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 relations 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 an alternative of seven,” he jokes. “This isn’t simply their job. It’s their social life. It’s their e book membership. They really come dwelling from trip early as a result of they need 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 may see what we’ve constructed,” he says. “In our tradition, we honor our ancestors. On daily basis I stroll into this restaurant, I keep in mind that I’m carrying their torch. That’s the legacy I’m attempting to guard.”
