Remembering Chan's Café and Chan's Moon Room (1941 - 1974)

  © 2025, Christian Cassidy

It is always fun to travel back to Winnipeg's post-war nightlife of big bands and supper clubs. When a member of the Chan family asked me to look into the history of Chan's Moon Room for them, I was more than happy to oblige.  

Chan's grew from humble beginnings as a family-owned Chinese food restaurant in 1941 to a three-storey cultural hub topped off by the iconic Moon Room supper club. Here is its back story:

Top: Undated postcard, 20th Century Studios, Winnipeg. (Source)
Bottom: Undated postcard of cafe interior (Source)

Chan’s Café first appears in the 1942 Winnipeg street directory, the data for which would have been compiled in 1941. It was located on the main floor of 426 Main Street, a space that had been home to the Astoria Café. The upper two floors contained other businesses, including a veterans' hall. (The building was demolished circa 1990 and is now a surface parking lot.)

Three relatives opened Chan's: Harry Chan, his cousin Wing Chan, and Jim Chan. (See more about the Chans of Chan's below.)

Some of the partners do not appear in earlier Winnipeg street directories, but they certainly would not have been new to Canada. The Chinese Immigration Act of 1923, often referred to as the Chinese Exclusion Act, barred Chinese immigration to the country until its repeal in 1947. Thousands of men who came to Canada to build the railway found themselves unable to sponsor their families to come live with them once their work was done.

Manitoba's Chinese population grew by a couple of hundred people during the ban due to migration from other provinces.  Winnipeg's Chinese population in 1941, the year the restaurant opened, was 719. Because of the immigration ban, 679 of those were men, and just 40 were women. 

Charlie Foo (Source: Winnipeg Chinatown: Celebrating 100 years)

The business proved successful, and in 1945, Harry and Wing took on other partners, to create Chan’s Café Co. Ltd., including Au Hong "Charlie" Foo as president. 

Foo came to Winnipeg in 1919 at the age of 25. He worked as a tailor, and then for 20 years in sales at a meat distributor before joining Chan's.

By then, he was already well-known in the city. As head of the Chinese Nationalist League through the 1930s and 1940s, he was a go-to person for English-language newspapers to get commentary on current events in China. He was also on the city’s Community Chest committee (similar to today’s United Way) and organised fundraising drives in the Chinese community for local charities and Canadian soldiers during World War II.

Foo’s high profile made him the public face of Chan’s. He remained president of the company until he sold his interest in late 1973 and retired to Vancouver with his wife, Frances.

The 1950s were a decade of great expansion for the business. At the time, Chan’s Café Co. Ltd's principals were Charlie Foo, president, Harry Chan, vice president and manager, Wing Chan, secretary-treasurer. Ward Chan and Jim Chan were board directors.

The restaurant closed in the summer of 1954 for renovations and reopened as the “newly remodelled and ultra-modern” Chan's Café on August 17, 1954. 

Three years later, the space on the upper floors of 426 Main Street became available and it appears that Chan's bought the building. It spent $200,000 on an eight-month renovation that included the installation of an elevator. 

When it was done, the Lotus Room lounge and Pagoda Room dining room (with seating for 66) were on the second floor. The top floor contained three dining spaces, the Bamboo Room, Jade Room, and Golden Dragon Room, that could be opened into a single space to seat 200 for banquets or weddings.

The interior design, furniture and carpeting was by Simpson's contract division and the general contractor was R. J. Dupuis Construction Ltd. based in the neighbouring McIntyre Block. 

The upper floors opened to the public in November 1957.

August 4, 1959, Winnipeg Tribune

Chan’s decided to get into the supper club business in 1959. The upper floors were again renovated to create Chan’s Moon Room on the third floor and an expanded Lotus Room lounge on the second floor. 

The interior design and furnishings were again by Simpson's contact division and the general contractor was Grossman Ltd. of 516 Marion Street.

Supper clubs were all the rage from the late 1950s to the early 1970s. People could have a sit-down dinner while listening to a singer, followed by drinks and dancing late into the night with a live band. It was a whole evening of entertainment in one stop.

At their peak, there were a dozen sizeable supper clubs in the city.

The first mention of Chan’s Moon Room is in a “Maggie’s Mirror” entertainment column in the Winnipeg Tribune of July 31, 1959, when the author went to meet its first headliner, American Lurlean Hunter, before her show.

The club manager for the Moon Room was Jack Britton. He was responsible for sourcing and booking the entertainment from the time the club opened until he moved to California in 1963. 

The entertainment offered at Winnipeg's supper clubs was a mix of local and continental acts. The out-of-towners were often travelling headliners booked through an agency in Toronto or Chicago and would come for a week or two before moving on to the next city on their circuit. (Famously, an unknown Barbra Streisand played The Towers supper club on Kennedy Street in 1961 when she got the call to go to New York to audition for a Broadway musical, which made her a star.) 

Local entertainers made up the house band and were usually the accompanists for the headliners, who rarely came with their own musicians in tow. 

Chan’s Moon Room had several long-term house bands. From its opening year to at least 1966, it was the Bernie Shaw Trio made up of Bernie Shaw, Bobby Jackson and Owen Clark. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Ray St. Germain Trio were club regulars. 

Chan’s didn’t have the budget of a place like Rancho Don Carlos supper club on Pembina Highway to book star headliners like Oscar Peterson, Rosemary Clooney and Nat King Cole. Still, some of those who graced its stage had notable careers and some even settled in the city based on their experience here.

Ron Petty was a favourite in the Moon Room's early years. The American-born baritone was working the Chicago club scene when he made his first appearance in 1958. He decided to call Winnipeg home in 1962 and by December 1963 made his 16th return engagement to its stage.

Thanks to his touring and the attention he received on local radio, Petty got his own variety show on CBC Television in 1965 called the Roy Petty Show.

Bobbi Sherron was another American singer who, after playing three gigs at the Moon Room, decided to make Winnipeg her home. She had a long and influential career in the American and Canadian Jazz scene.

Undated photo. Unsure of this is a dining area or the Moon Room (Source: Chan family)

Chan’s Café continued to be a popular restaurant, but cracks began to appear in the city's supper club industry in the late 1960s. 

A new generation had its own idea of what an evening's entertainment was, and it didn't involve the supper clubs of their parents. There were now intimate tea rooms around the city featuring folk performers, and thanks to liquor law changes, live rock bands at cabarets in hotel beverage rooms.

To compete, some supper clubs, including the Moon Room, booked rock or country bands from time to time. Another trend it followed was hiring go-go dancers who performed to recorded music as cheap, filler entertainment.

February 17, 1972, Winnipeg Free Press

In February 1972, the Moon Room rebranded itself as “Chan’s New Moon Room” with the tag line “The Fun Centre of Winnipeg’s Entertainment World”. 

It wasn’t clear what the “new” meant, but with ads promoting continuous entertainment, discount drink prices, and local performers in place of traveling headliners, it likely meant they ditched the supper club format in favour of more of a hotel cabaret vibe. (The “new” was dropped for 1973.)

Chan’s Moon Room continued to get quality local performers for its stage. Ray St. Germain continued to play and even managed the club for a while in the early 1970s, but his burgeoning career took him away from the local scene frequently.  Other notable locals who graced the stage in the 1970s were Lenny Breau and Ron Paley.

As a last gasp to keep the club going, Bill and Alberta Saunders, veterans of Winnipeg’s club scene, were hired to take over the management of the club on July 1, 1973. By then, it was too late.

The last advertisement for Chan's and Chan's Moon Room appeared in the Free Press on February 2, 1974, promoting the restaurant and featuring the local dance band Grizzly Bare as the club's entertainment.

Undated photo, Source: City of Winnipeg Archives

Jimmy King noted in his “Night Beat” column of March 23, 1974, that Chan’s, the café and Moon Room, would close the following week after new owners from Hong Kong had purchased the building.

King praised the club for its 14 years and what it meant to Winnipeg’s entertainment scene. He concluded, "I for one will miss being able to drop into Chan's to say hello to Mr. Foo, the ageless owner and one of Winnipeg's nicest people."

On April 1, 1974, an invitation-only gala evening was held. King described it as a capacity crowd made up of former customers, musicians, and other entertainers who had graced its stage.

The closure of Chan’s Moon Room left Club Morocco, Koko’s, and the King’s Plate as the only non-hotel clubs left in the city. Club Morocco outlasted them all, lasting into the 1980s.

As for the building, the new owners renovated it inside and out.

Kum Koon Garden, a Cantonese-style restaurant that offered a buffet lunch and dinner, opened on the main floor and had a banquet hall on the top floor. According to Winnipeg Chinatown: Celebrating 100 Years, Kum Koon Garden was run by some of the younger staff and management of from Chan's Cafe. It operated from 426 Main until around 1989 when it opened a new building at 257 King Street in Chinatown and is still in operation.

In 1975, the former Lotus Room lounge on the second floor became Chez André's French Cuisine, which was replaced by Lindy's Steakhouse by 1984.

The building was torn down around 1990 and is currently part of a surface parking lot.

The Chans of Chan's

With the exception of Charlie Foo, Chan's Cafe Co. Ltd. was a family affair. These are some of the Chans who played a role in the café or supper club. The list is not complete.

Chan’s original family partners (top row):

Harry Chan was born in Canton, China and came to Canada in 1909 with his father. He returned to marry Ming Yee and have two children before the family returned to Canada in 1923. He worked at Chan’s until its closure in 1974 and died in 2001 at the age of 106.

Jim Chan was born in China and came to Manitoba in 1921. He married Choi Tai, and they had four children. He worked at Chan’s until its closure in 1974 and died in 1976 at the age of 79.

Wing Chan, a cousin of Harry,  was born in China and came to Canada at an early age and operated restaurants throughout Manitoba. he was likely in Dauphin before coming to Winnipeg to partner in Chan’s. He married Woo See, and they had three children. He retired from the business in 1966 and died in 1979 at the age of 91.

Jimmy Ward Chan came to Canada in 1910. He worked for Independent Fish during the 1920s and with his wife Betty ran the West Cafe through the 1930s. He died in 1971 at the ge of 78.

Joe Chan, not pictured, was a brother of Wing Chan and came from Dauphin to work at Chan's. He is not listed as an original partner, but as a chef. He died in 1944 before its development into a night spot.

A newer generation came along in the 1950s to help expand the business:

Kam Fon Chan was born in China, came to Canada in 1953, and was a chef at Chan’s. After Chan’s, he worked at other restaurants, including the Ho Inn. He died in 1984.

William Chan, the brother of Kam Fon Chan, was born in China and came to Canada in 1950. He worked at Chan’s until 1974. After its closure, he opened his own restaurant called the Blue Diamond on Notre Dame Avenue. He retired in 1996 and died in 1999.

Barry Chan, son of Harry Chan, was born in Taishan, China in 1923. He married Joyce in 1947, and  came to Canada in 1950. His wife and son joined him in 1958. Barry was assistant manager of the second-floor cocktail lounge and the Moon Room in the 1960s. After Chan’s closed, he opened the China Garden Restaurant. He retired to Toronto and died there in 2019. 

Other Images: 

The streetscape around Chan's when it opened in 1941.
(Source: City of Winnipeg Archives)

The streetscape around Chan's (bottom right) when the Moon Room opened in 1959
(Source: York University, John Warkentin fonds) 

Chan's Café matchbook 

(Source: eBay)

August 16, 1954, Winnipeg Tribune

Winnipeg Visitor's Guide, Summer 1958
(Source: Winnipeg Architecture Foundation)