Charlie Louie opened this popular establishment on December 21, 1929, offering food, music, drink and gambling to an enthusiastic Jazz Age clientele. Having immigrated to the U.S. from Canton, China, Louie came to Seattle from Portland in 1904. His ambitious project at this address was originally a Chinese Grand Opera Theater, for which he commissioned the building in 1923. But there was apparently little appetite for classical music and Louie soon found himself promoting prize fights (with Wildcat Carter in the ring) to keep the place open. Closing in 1928, he retooled for jazz and dancing and when he opened the Chinese Garden the following year, the club took off. Charlie featured the best musicians in town, including drummer Leonard Gayton, pianists Palmer Johnson and Phil Moore, vocalists Zelma Winslow and Evelyn Williamson, clarinet Joe Darensbourg and saxophonists Frank Waldon and Dick Wilson.
Ad, Seattle Times,
September 19, 1929.
Chinese Garden in the early days.
(courtesy of Laurence Louie)
Folks dressed up for the Chinese Garden. Tycoons, politicians and downtown lawyers were regulars. Restaurant patrons came through the front door for dinner or walked upstairs for banquets, but the speakeasy on the third floor – with gambling and booze – could only be reached from the alley out back. Despite such precautions, the club was raided from time to time, but Charlie maintained a good relationship with the police during this time of the “tolerance policy.”
Though its music shifted from hot jazz to the sweeter swing and Dixieland of Wyatt Howard in the late ‘30s, the Chinese Garden remained a popular spot for a delicious Chinese meal, music and dancing until it was sold in 1959, when it became the Gim Ling Restaurant.
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Site of the
Chinese Garden today.