China Gate

     Page Thirty-Six.
     China Gate Restaurant recently re-opened. That's a place just a few miles east of me in Cedar Center which is a plaza on Cedar Road in South Euclid, Ohio. Cedar Center was one of the shopping district where I grew up. A May Company Department Store anchored it, and then there were a couple dozen stores which lined both sides of this very busy street. We shopped there a lot when I was a kid.
     Cedar Center was built in the forties as that part of town became more residential. In fact, The May Company was built on an old golf course. According to the 1960 census, Shaker Heights, Ohio was the wealthiest suburb in America and Cedar Center catered to that population to a certain degree. According to some urban legelnd from the sixties or seventies, the five mile radius around Cedar Center had the highest level of disposable income per capita of any spot in America. I don't know if that's true or not, but it could be, and any long-time Cleveland resident knows it. That five mile radius would have included Shaker, Cleveland Heights, Beachwood, Pepper Pike and other very wealthy enclaves.
     Cedar Center had a wide variety of stores: gift shops, drug stores, clothing stores - your typical mix. It also had the usual restaurants. Mawby's, Solomon's Corky & Lenny's and China Gate. There were two Mawby's, the other on Lee Road here in Cleveland Heights. I don't remember them real well but you'll still hear Mawby's brought up in conversations at cocktail parties among long-time Cleveland residents. Apparently they had the world's best burgers. Solomon's and Corky & Lenny's were both fancy deli fare. I have no memory of any difference between the two, but I don't doubt that any old Jew in Cleveland right now could be brought to fisticuffs when engaging in argument over which was better. Corky's still exists and does a bang up job in their location at Village Square in Woodmere, where they moved in the eighties.
     Then there was China Gate. This was the style of Chinese food that put the 1950's on the map. Cantonese style Chop Suey, Egg Foo Young, Chicken Chow Mein, BBQ Ribs... and all with florescent red sweet 'n sour sauce on the side. It was so exotic. There were the plastic palm trees in the corners. The front windows had colorful beads as curtains. Everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY remembers the Lava Lamp on the front counter. What a Lava Lamp has to do with China, you weren't supposed to ask, but it was cool. And then there was the wooden screen which led into the dining room. Between the foyer and dining room was, well, a wooden screen which had Chinese scroll work cut into it. The screen was the entire width and height of the place and smack dab in the middle, on top, above the entryway, was the Jewish Star of David. A smarter Chinese restaurant owner never existed.
     I guess China Gate originally was downtown somewhere and then moved east with the post WWII suburb explosion. They quickly became an institution. We ate there at least as often as Mawby's, Corky's or Solomon's when I was little. It was simply THE Chinese place you went to. That's it.
     So, in about 2004 or 2005, the reconstruction of Cedar Center began. It was done in two parts because one side of the street is in University Heights and the other is in, again, South Euclid. The University Heights side, which was rebuilt first, got a new Whole Foods and gobs of new stores. It's very nice. So then they tear down the other side of the street, including China Gate, in '06 or '07. Whoops!!! I don't know which fell faster, those buildings or the stock market. I'm sure those few acres looked worse than downtown Kabul for the next few years. It was too depressing for words. There were stories in The Cleveland Plain Dealer and on the local news about the delays in rebuilding Cedar Center. That's how high profile this little 500 foot plaza is in Cleveland.
     But all bad things must come to an end and they finally started rebuilding in '11. All the buildings have been in place for a few months now and tenants have been moving back in. Last fall I went into the new national chain family dining place; no comment (it sucked). But last August or so there was an article in the paper which said that China Gate would be re-opening sometime. Then they put the storefront sign up in December and people went bonkers. Everybody was hoping they'd be open by Christmas but apparently there were delays in getting the appliances hooked up. But about a week ago, I noticed that the "open" sign ws on. I'd heard in advance that the new place is take-out only. Oh well. I'll miss the Jewish star though. I think I'll go there for dinner tonight. Yummm!!! "1950's style sweet 'n sour chicken come to daddy."


... The line was out the door and I didn't feel like waiting. I picked up a menu and will order later in the week. There is seating inside too. Not much mind you, but enough for about ten people. They'll do a great business.