Lee's Restaurant in Rivers sold

Details

Published on Monday, April 4, 2016

By Sheila Runions

Banner Staff

Lee’s Restaurant in Rivers has been sold. Wen and Wendy Chen bought it in February 1992 from Peter and Yi Lam. While they are not yet ready to officially retire, as astute business people they knew they should accept the opportunity when it came, for if they waited another 10 or more years when they did want to retire, a buyer might not be found. And so, on April 1 the sale was official.

“I love to work in this town and I love my job, but we are so happy we don’t have to work 17 hours a day anymore,” says Wendy. “We don’t have a clue where we’re going to be, but Rivers will always be home. We’ll probably move to Saskatchewan. We can’t retire yet, it’s too soon.”

Before moving to Rivers, Wen lived in Saskatoon and Wendy in the Bredenbury area (near Yorkton). They are expecting to stay in Rivers, living in friends’ spare bedrooms for another month, but are planning to move back to Saskatchewan to be closer to family.

“We will try to stay in April to help them but we really have no idea. We need to find a home. I am sad because I don’t have a home yet,” says Wendy.

The Wen Chen family lived in the apartment above the restaurant the entire24 years; they have had to move out to make room for the Ivan Chen family, who will now live there.

Ivan and Karen Chen immigrated to Canada from Guangdong, China 10 years ago. They lived in Toronto the entire decade and have run a restaurant in that city during that time. They have also begun to raise a family, with daughter Jackie aged four and son Leo, aged three. They made the offer to purchase because, “Toronto is too busy, there’s too many cars,” they have family in Minnedosa and they “want a quieter life. Plus the people are real nice and we really like it here,” says Karen. She is basing this assessment on a visit here last November, which is when they toured the restaurant/apartment of their cousin/in-law Wen. (Wen and Ivan’s parents are siblings.)

While Ivan and Karen have been in Rivers for the last 10 days, the rest of their family will arrive this weekend. Ivan’s parents Jing-Shun Chen (dad) and Peijiao Wu (mom) are bringing the kids here and will continue to live with them as built-in babysitters. Jackie was in kindergarten in Toronto and while they hope to transfer her to Rivers Elementary School for the rest of the term, they may just wait until Grade 1 and enrol her this fall.

Ivan and Karen’s first day of business will be April 6. Their hours will be Tuesday-Sunday, 8 a.m.-8 p.m. They have promised to keep Wen’s famous chicken balls the same — a vast number of people have been concerned about losing this most popular menu item. While the chicken balls (and some other food items) will be the same, Ivan and Karen are going to implement a few changes, such as serving breakfast all day and having some regular buffets. A luncheon smorgasbord will be available on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday from 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.; a supper smorg will run Friday-Sunday, 4:30-8 p.m. While Ivan and Karen will be new faces for regular customers to see, those loyal consumers will also be greeted by former W. Chen staff Sam Perrin and Kennedy Marsh. Karen says, “Of course we have to retain the staff; we need their help!”

Please see their ad in this issue regarding their grand opening, which will have a one-time only Wednesday luncheon buffet.