Once you wound up at the Jade Pagoda, the night was going one of two ways. Oh so right. Or oh man.
We had our share of both. Sometimes in that order.
You knew the place from half a block away. Big red pagoda roof at 606 Broadway East. Neon COCKTAILS sign. A rotary pay phone in the lobby, in case you needed to tell somebody you were still out. Then into the bar, where it took a minute for your eyes to adjust. Jimmy Woo thought the low light was romantic, according to his wife, Pearl. Give it a minute. You might’ve agreed with him.
Jimmy’s uncles opened the Jade Pagoda in 1943, and for years neighborhood families came for Chinese American dinners. There were dragon kites overhead, black upholstered booths, and white cloth napkins folded into fans. Even near the end, when the crowd was mostly there to drink, the dining room was still set for company. As for the smell, writer Vince Schleitwiler spent the night of his wedding at the Pagoda with his wife and friends. Years later, he could still summon the funk of the fryer oil. There are fancier ways to remember your wedding. That one seems hard to beat.
The drinks were cheap, strong, and memorable across decades. Pearl remembered the double martini crowd. A reporter on the final night clocked a Heineken and a short glass of something and Coke. You can practically
hear the ice knock against the side of that glass.
A few nights before closing, a Seattle P-I reporter found a guy in a Mr. Rogers T-shirt deep in conversation with a woman he’d just met. She was telling him a story involving a bat and a cat. A UW philosophy instructor was explaining Nietzsche to some new acquaintances while Rod Stewart played on the jukebox. Earlier, Bryant Woo had sent a retired piano player home with a bottle of milk so he could skip a trip to the store.
That’s the Pagoda we miss. A Chinese restaurant and a neighborhood bar under one roof, with room for somebody’s wedding night, somebody’s first drink with a new friend, and somebody who just needed milk. For people who knew that stretch of Broadway, it was one of the places you could walk into alone and reasonably expect to have a story by the time you left.
Pearl closed the Jade Pagoda on August 31, 2006, after 63 years. The landlord was planning repairs and a rent increase, and she decided it was time to retire. She chose the anniversary of Jimmy’s death. The family gathered in the dining room, the bar filled up, and Pearl Jam played on the jukebox. A few old regulars had resurfaced to say goodbye. “I thought they were dead,” Pearl told the P-I.
We made a Jade Pagoda T-shirt for anybody who remembers seeing that red roof and deciding the night could go a little longer.
If you’ve got a Pagoda story, we’d love to hear it. Either kind.
Pickled Eggs Co. The good times revival company.