ISO Yee Mee Loo
ISO the Yee Mee Loo Kwan Yin Bar
The back bar was originally constructed for the set of the MGM movie, The Good Earth, 1937, designed by Cedric Gibbons, set decoration by Hugh Hunt, moved to the Cinnabar in Glendale. We would love to bring back the Kwan Yin Bar to Chinatown. If you can help, please contact us.
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Article from the LA Times, January 16, 1997
Yee Mee Loo's Lives On at Glendale Restaurant:The owners of the longtime Chinatown site were honored with a dinner at Cinnabar, now home to the ornate Kwan Yin bar.Here's a tale of how things may come to good ends in the San Fernando Valley. Cinnabar restaurant in Glendale hosted a special dinner Sunday night to honor John and Claudia Low, who operated Yee Mee Loo's restaurant and bar in Los Angeles' Chinatown for five decades. The Lows closed down Yee Mee Loo's in 1989, unable to satisfy a landlord who wanted to turn the site into something trendier than a very old bar and restaurant, even one with a loyal following. The landlord's plans came to nothing, as it happened. The building that housed Yee Mee Loo's, at Spring and Ord streets, fell to the wrecker's ball, and the site now stands vacant. But Yee Mee Loo's bar, the actual counter--known as the Kwan Yin bar, after the Chinese goddess of compassion--survived. Alvin Simon, who owns Cinnabar, rescued it to hold up bent elbows in his own place, including those of many old-timers who followed the bar to its new residence. Much of the gilding on the bar has worn away, but it still boasts its original silk panels, its tile and lanterns and its statues of the eight immortals of Chinese lore. "I wanted that bar," Simon says. "I used to drink at Yee Mee Loo's, and I didn't want it to disappear." Adds his sister Flame, who helps run things at Cinnabar: "Yee Mee Loo's was a great, great hangout for writers and artists and drinkers and bums and street people. Anybody who really knew old Los Angeles went to Yee Mee Loo's. "I think the bar sat for a long time in the old building while it was vacant, before it was destroyed. My brother wanted to bring it here to Cinnabar because it fits the decor of this old building. We're in an old Bekin's Van and Storage building; the men's room is in what used to be the old fur vault. "The old-timers from Yee Mee Loo's tracked the bar down, found out that we had it, and started coming here." Sunday's dinner for John and Claudia Low featured items from a menu recently overhauled by Cinnabar chef Damon Bruner. It was by invitation only, and people came from far and wide. But on other nights, Cinnabar plays host to ordinary mortals who want a taste of what the Los Angeles bar-and-restaurant scene was like many years ago. It is located at 933 S. Brand Blvd., Glendale, (818) 551-1155. The Cinnebar Restaurant closed in 2005. If you know the whereabouts of the Kwan Yin Bar, please contact Jody at Film Bridge. Updated: 2013: Here is the Yee Mee Loo Facebook Page ! https://www.facebook.com/yeemeeloo |
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