Wealth Blog | Jimmy's Kitchen going strong after 85 years

In a city where restaurants are lucky to survive 18 months, it’s remarkable to find one that’s still thriving 85 years after it first opened its doors in 1928. The first Jimmy’s Kitchen was on the then Wanchai shoreline on Lockhart Road and served solid grub to foreign adventurers, China traders and British navy chaps pining for decent food that reminded them of home. Much as it does now, with a few nods to modern cooking. It was a scrubbed table tops and bare light bulbs sort of place, nothing like as plush as today.

Who was Jimmy?

Jimmy was Jimmy James, from a small Midwestern town and posted to the Far East with the US army. After discharge he was doing so well in Shanghai he was enlisted by the US government to be a Deputy Marshall in 1923. Jimmy was smart and a year later opened a hamburger stand on Chefoo docks, now Yantai, on the north coast of Shantung, a summer anchorage for the American navy. He also opened a popcorn stand in Shanghai. His next move was a restaurant called The Broadway Lunch in Shanghais docklands, opposite the Savoy Hotel. It soon became known to regulars as Jimmy’s, so he changed the name officially to Jimmy’s Kitchen. In 1927 he opened a second Jimmy’s on Nanjing Road East, next door to the Navy YMCA.

Jimmy’s heads south

The same year he met and teamed up with Aaron Landau, and adventurer heading south from Russia, and they agreed Aaron would open Hong Kong Jimmy’s. He did just that, in 1928, near the Seaman’s Institute and Old China Fleet Club on Lockhart Road. It moved to China Building, Theatre Lane in Central in 1934 and Aaron’s son Leo joined the business.

Wartime shutdown

Jimmy’s was forced to close in1941 during World War Two when Leo was interned by the Japanese in Sham Shui Po. As soon as the invaders had surrendered at Christmas in 1945, he went straight back to restart the restaurant, with many of the original staff.  If he was able to get supplies, it must have been an oasis after the ghastly hardships of the grim war years.