<Begin Segment 22>

JS: How did the restaurant get its name?

MN: The Mandarin?

JS: Yeah.

MN: Oh, I don't know. We, we were, we were just, the four of us, my, Anna and Lori and my sister Yo and I, Betty and I, we were thinking, and then I think my mother up with it, came up with that name, Mandarin.

JS: Did you serve Mandarin food there?

MN: No, no, we didn't think anything, we didn't know. We didn't know at the time that Mandarin was Mandarin food. [Laughs]

JS: Now why did your family continue it as a Chinese restaurant and not as a Japanese or any other kind of restaurant?

MN: I don't know. It was, first we had, we hired some cooks from San Francisco, Chinese cooks. And then they just kept coming, and when someone would quit and then we'll get another one and then he would quit and we'll get another one. And then, and then it just was always a Chinese restaurant.

JS: Well, why was there such a high turnover of cooks?

MN: Lot of those cooks are, they're very, they didn't like constructive criticism, and if we didn't like what they made, they would get, they would get upset, very upset, and they would say, "I quit."

JS: How many cooks did you have before it stabilized?

MN: I think, oh, I can't remember. At least five, at least five, until we got two good ones.

JS: And when was that?

MN: About 1950, 1960... about 1960 to about 1970.

JS: Who worked there?

MN: My brother Bill and my husband Bob, and my sister-in-law...

JS: From, from the very beginning?

MN: From very... well, no, it, it was, first it was given to my sister Anna, she, she took over, then she got married.

JS: Okay.

MN: And then, and then, then Lori took over, so, and then Lori took over, and then Lori had a chance to run another, another business called Taylor Fish Market, so she decided to go do that, and so she told Bill to take over. And then, and then at that time, Bill had to go to the, he was stationed at, I don't know where, he was in army, he was in the Korean War.

JS: So it's 1950 or so?

MN: Uh-huh, yes, uh-huh. So, yeah, so he was in the Korean War, so, and then in the meantime, my husband got a honorable discharge. He was medically unfit to be in the army they said, so he had, so they gave him, they told him that, "You could leave." So he took over until my brother came back, uh-huh.

<End Segment 22> - Copyright © 2004 Densho and The Japanese American Museum of San Jose. All Rights Reserved.