“3120 Chinese Restaurant, Dupont Street, San Francisco.” c. 1880s. Photograph by Isaiah West Taber (from the collection of the California State Library).
This photo represents one of several which I.W. Taber took of an archetypical four-level building at the height of its principal occupant’s prominence, the Woey Sin Low (Chinese: 會仙樓; canto: “Wui Seen Lauh”) restaurant at 808 Dupont Street. The configuration of the building’s floors would have probably followed the typical pattern: stairs leading down from the sidewalk to a basement level commissary for laborers, the main and second floors would serve general and banquet customers daily, and an ornate, top floor dining room would serve as a dining venue for Chinatown’s merchant elite to entertain their peers and city hall politicians including police commanders, as remains the custom of such establishments until recent times.
To view more photos of this legendary eatery of old San Francisco Chinatown, go to my blog here: https://demospectator.tumblr.com
