June Law is a life-long native of Augusta, Georgia.

She grew up living over her familys Joy Young Caf and Grocery with her parents, brother Jerry, and sister Eileen. June and Eileen became educators and spent their entire careers as teachers devoted to their students and their families.

My grandfather, Charles Yee, came from China around 1900. After working in a laundry in Atlanta briefly, he moved to Augusta, Georgia, where he opened a grocery store in a black section of town. My father, Loo Yee, emigrated from Guangdong to the United States in 1921 at age 13, arriving in Seattle using the paper name, Law Hin Yee. He first worked in a laundry and also as a cook in LaGrange, Georgia, before coming to Augusta to join his father around 1930.

Figure 1 Left panel: Charles Yee, June Laws grandfather (third from left) and nephew Hing Sec Loo (second from left) in front of original location, mid 1930s. Right panel: Charles Yee in front of Joy Young Caf. Courtesy, June Law. Around 1934 they opened a restaurant on the second floor above their street level grocery store at 801 9th Street. My grandparents and father lived on the third floor above the restaurant. During this period Augusta had four to five Chinese restaurants, most of which were located in black neighborhoods. One of the businesses, Four Sisters, near our restaurant, was a black beauty parlor across the street. Often when my parents were very busy in the restaurant and market, some of the ladies at Four Sisters looked after us when we were small. I still remember watching them use hot curling irons that were heated on gas holders. Sometimes they took us to their church on Sunday evenings on Washington Road. On other occasions we would go with them to the black Lenox Theater.

Joy Young, the name of the caf refers in Chinese to a place where all bright, intelligent and good persons are gathered in harmony. Behind the restaurant, grandfather built a coop to house the chickens raised to serve in the restaurant or sell in the market. Each week, he would sell fresh chickens, which were popular with local Jewish people who came to buy them before sundown. A rabbi came by to bless the chickens, and grandfather learned kosher rules for slaughtering the chickens.

Figure 2. Grandfather in Joy Young grocery store on the first level of the building. During World War II, grandfather Yee operated the Joy Young without the help of father who was in the Army Air Corp and served in Italy with the 557th Air Service. After the war, father returned to China to marry my mother, Thew Lee, through an arranged match. As a veteran, he was able to bring her to Augusta in 1947 under the War Brides Act. My parents, and their four children, Chuck, Eileen, Jerry, and I, lived above the restaurant on the third floor. By the time we were 8 or 9, we were helping with the work of the restaurant performing kitchen chores or operating the cash register.

Figure 3 Father holding my sister Eileen, mother, and Uncle Joe at 801 9th St. location around 1949.

Figure 4. Older half-brother Chuck, father with my sister Eileen, and mother Thew Lee.

Figure 5 Thew Lee serving soldiers from nearby Fort Gordon. c. 1950. Courtesy, June Law. Augusta civic officials dined so often at the Joy Young Caf that people started wondering if decisions affecting the city businesses and political elections were made while they enjoyed eating our chop suey and chow mein. When grandfather Yee retired around 1947 or 1948 and returned to China, my father took over the operation of the business. We continued operating the Joy Young at its original location until the mid-1950s when we moved to a downtown location at 506 Ninth St. Father was resourceful in saving his money. He wisely invested in commercial real estate, acquiring three storefronts that were next to the restaurant that housed the Georgia Whole Florist, a beauty and barber supply store, and a dry cleaning business.

Figure 6 Loo family in front of new location of Joy Young at 506 Ninth St.

Figure 7 Father Loo Yee cooking in the new location of the restaurant in 1957.

Most southerners at that time had little or no experience with Chinese food and generally ordered only traditional American dishes. Standard American dishes such as steak, pork chops, jumbo shrimp, hamburger steak, fried chicken, and salads were popular with customers. A few American Cantonese dishes such as chop suey, chow mein, egg foo young, several types of sweet and sour dishes, and fried rice were successful but there was little demand for other Chinese dishes. We tried to educate them about Chinese food by printing some nutritional information on the menu.

Figure 8 Guide to Chinese Food printed on the menu Because of the Jim Crow segregation laws of the period, sit-down dining rooms were racially segregated. We served whites only, although blacks could buy food for takeout. Mostly white, but occasionally black women, worked as waitresses at Joy Young. It was not until the 1960s that civil rights activists successfully sued to enable blacks to receive service in all restaurants.

Figure 9 Joy Young Menu Selections

Operating a restaurant was a time consuming business, with long hours each day it opened. There was little time for vacations or trips out of town so it was a welcome event whenever visitors came from out of town. Chinese from laundries or other restaurants might visit on their day off. Mother was related to the original owners of the well-known Joy Young Restaurant in Birmingham whereas Mrs. Loo had relatives that ran a dry cleaners in Atlanta who would drop by when they came to visit Augusta.

Figure 10 L-R: Loo Yee, Thew Lee holding Grant, the son of Mr. and Mrs. Herman Toms son who was named after nearby Fort Gordon where Herman Tom was stationed. Mr. and Mrs. Hing Sec Loo are in the center. On the right are Mrs. and Mr. Herman Tom. The Joy Young Caf also served as a social center where Chinese relatives, friends, and overseas Chinese visiting Augusta could gather to socialize over a meal of Chinese food. After the restaurant closed for the day, several Chinese would sometimes come to play mah jong or enjoy a Chinese domino game late into the night. Over the years, father hired several older Chinese bachelors who had retired from years of work in laundries or restaurants in the region. They needed a place to reside briefly while they waited for their grown children or grandchildren to arrange to send for them. Space on the floors above fathers four stores provided lodging for them. In return, they helped cook or do other chores in the restaurant. Loo Wai ended up staying for years, and became part of the family. We helped care for him during his old age.

Figure 11 Vietta Anderson, waitress, who gave Bibles to the children, with father Loo Yee in front of Joy Young in 1960. On the left is a nephew, Grant Loo. A danger of running a restaurant was that they were easy targets for robbery, and Joy Young was no exception. Two young blacks tried to rob my father at gunpoint in 1987. Mother was in the kitchen cooking an order at the time. A gun was discharged, but fortunately it missed my father. The would-be robbers panicked after the gun went off and they fled without actually getting any money. Business for the restaurant was declining over the 1980s as downtown Augusta was dying with the increasing popularity of suburban shopping malls but we managed to hang on for a few more years after mother died in 1990 and before father died in 1998. However, after over 60 years of operation, we finally closed the Joy Young Cafe in 1997 or 1998 when Augusta exercised the right of eminent domain to purchase fathers buildings to rebuild the area around the Federal Courthouse. It had served our family well and enabled us to provide delicious food and a community social gathering place in downtown Augusta for many decades.