Uploaded April 2023 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
#gsohistory #greensboronc #downtowngreensboro #billyingram
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At 314 North Church Street in Greensboro, NC is a Tudor inspired house I remember as a kid being Jung’s Chinese & American Restaurant. There were beautiful spacious dining rooms with high ceilings inside but my dad would always get food to go, the Chinese Spare Ribs were a favorite. I would tag along with my father, this was maybe 1970? I remember a little kid, 4 or 5 years old, that hung out in the reception area - belonging to the owners I guess. My dad usually gave the boy a quarter.
For decades GSO had only one Chinese Restaurant, The Lotus owned by Peter Jung & York Lee, beginning around 1935. Also known as Lotus House, it was located at 105 South Greene Street, the former location of a Sears & Roebuck Auto Accessories Store. These buildings no longer exist, there's a parking lot there now.
Recollections from people who worked at Lotus stated that the place opened in the 1920s but I can’t find any evidence of that in city directories of that era. However it could be true.
here’s a little known factoid - in the 20s & 30s was a strip of tiny storefronts on East Market Street that served as what we might call today pop up stores or Ghost Kitchens. Folks cooked the food at home and brought it downtown to sold it out of the front doors. Could Lotus have started here?
It was virtually the only way to get semi-exotic foods downtown that wasn’t what was called Plantation style that every restaurant served, your mashed potatoes, collard greens, pork chops, green beans, hamburgers, hot dogs, that type of thing.
And in fact Lotus served typical American staples as well: steaks, corn bread, biscuits, apple pie. John Jung went to work in the kitchen at Lotus in 1938. he told Jim Schlosser in 2005 that the place mainly served fried rice, chop suey and chow mein on the Chinese side of the menu, "You didn't have wonton soup and all the other stuff they have now.”
Lotus House on Greene was the only Chinese restaurant in GSO for at least 30 years until Jung's Chinese American Restaurant opened in 1965 at E Bessemer & English, a few years later moving to the aforementioned 314 Church Street location where business was booming.
In 1965, the lavish Showboat Dinner Theater opened off Highway 68 on Gallimore Dairy Road in a building resembling a New Orleans riverboat where patrons crossed a bridge over a man-made lagoon to traverse from the parking lot to the theatre. They tried to take on the Barn Dinner Theater but Showboat only lasted a few years. Around 1972 until 1975 this location became the home of Jung’s Galley - a second location.
Lotus House closed in the late-1970s. Jung’s on Church street remained open until the mid-1980s.
By that time, there were several Chinese Restaurants in GSO, most notably Golden Dragon (2416 battleground) beginning in 1970 in a simple, stand alone brick edifice on Battleground, strictly takeout and boy was it good! (Further down Battleground there’s a Golden Dragon, I don’t know if it’s the same folks or not.) My go-to is China’s Best in the Lawndale Shopping Center.
By 2005, twenty years after Jung’s closed, there were more than 40 Chinese Restaurants populating GSO.
Today we even have an actual authentic Chinese eatery at Brassfield, Captain Chen’s, highly recommended!
#gsohistory #greensboronc #downtowngreensboro #billyingram
Push the like button, share this story, and subscribe to this channel for more obscure GSO history!
At 314 North Church Street in Greensboro, NC is a Tudor inspired house I remember as a kid being Jung’s Chinese & American Restaurant. There were beautiful spacious dining rooms with high ceilings inside but my dad would always get food to go, the Chinese Spare Ribs were a favorite. I would tag along with my father, this was maybe 1970? I remember a little kid, 4 or 5 years old, that hung out in the reception area - belonging to the owners I guess. My dad usually gave the boy a quarter.
For decades GSO had only one Chinese Restaurant, The Lotus owned by Peter Jung & York Lee, beginning around 1935. Also known as Lotus House, it was located at 105 South Greene Street, the former location of a Sears & Roebuck Auto Accessories Store. These buildings no longer exist, there's a parking lot there now.
Recollections from people who worked at Lotus stated that the place opened in the 1920s but I can’t find any evidence of that in city directories of that era. However it could be true.
here’s a little known factoid - in the 20s & 30s was a strip of tiny storefronts on East Market Street that served as what we might call today pop up stores or Ghost Kitchens. Folks cooked the food at home and brought it downtown to sold it out of the front doors. Could Lotus have started here?
It was virtually the only way to get semi-exotic foods downtown that wasn’t what was called Plantation style that every restaurant served, your mashed potatoes, collard greens, pork chops, green beans, hamburgers, hot dogs, that type of thing.
And in fact Lotus served typical American staples as well: steaks, corn bread, biscuits, apple pie. John Jung went to work in the kitchen at Lotus in 1938. he told Jim Schlosser in 2005 that the place mainly served fried rice, chop suey and chow mein on the Chinese side of the menu, "You didn't have wonton soup and all the other stuff they have now.”
Lotus House on Greene was the only Chinese restaurant in GSO for at least 30 years until Jung's Chinese American Restaurant opened in 1965 at E Bessemer & English, a few years later moving to the aforementioned 314 Church Street location where business was booming.
In 1965, the lavish Showboat Dinner Theater opened off Highway 68 on Gallimore Dairy Road in a building resembling a New Orleans riverboat where patrons crossed a bridge over a man-made lagoon to traverse from the parking lot to the theatre. They tried to take on the Barn Dinner Theater but Showboat only lasted a few years. Around 1972 until 1975 this location became the home of Jung’s Galley - a second location.
Lotus House closed in the late-1970s. Jung’s on Church street remained open until the mid-1980s.
By that time, there were several Chinese Restaurants in GSO, most notably Golden Dragon (2416 battleground) beginning in 1970 in a simple, stand alone brick edifice on Battleground, strictly takeout and boy was it good! (Further down Battleground there’s a Golden Dragon, I don’t know if it’s the same folks or not.) My go-to is China’s Best in the Lawndale Shopping Center.
By 2005, twenty years after Jung’s closed, there were more than 40 Chinese Restaurants populating GSO.
Today we even have an actual authentic Chinese eatery at Brassfield, Captain Chen’s, highly recommended!
