First Chinese restaurants in Sheffield

[riddo7up]

Can anyone remember where the first Chinese restaurant was in the city. I think I remember in the fifties a place starting up on West street/Glossop Road calling itself the Rickshaw. It was so popular originally that there were regularly queues outside waiting to be let in. Orwas it the Zing Vaa on the Moor. I know that the Zing Vaa was, and is, a more pretentious place, and that official visitors from China ate there

[mikey]

Some more info here

 

http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/showthread.php?s=&threadid=935

[riddo7up]

Thanks for your help. I seem to remember trying to get in there after returning from Glossop Road baths, but there was always a long queue

[DAVEGARY]

I remember as a child in the 60's a chinese eating place in commercial street called the Gambit .You went down steps to it.It was somewhere under the Gas Showrooms I think

[Plain Talker]

Originally posted by riddo7up

Can anyone remember where the first Chinese restaurant was in the city. I think I remember in the fifties a place starting up on West street/Glossop Road calling itself the Rickshaw. It was so popular originally that there were regularly queues outside waiting to be let in. Orwas it the Zing Vaa on the Moor. I know that the Zing Vaa was, and is, a more pretentious place, and that official visitors from China ate there

 

the rickshaw cafe was just off west street, at the junction of Eldon Street and Broomhall street, at the side of the old Royal Hospital (where the new Royal plaza and tesco is now)

 

You can still see the old Gas lamp which stood outside the building.

 

My father was brought up in a flat above the rickshaw cafe, for the first few years of his life, before moving back to the summer street/ fawcett street area (before the wholesale slum clearance)

 

PT

[rainbow2411]

When I was the office junior 1959 ish we used to go to the Peacock in the Wicker for the "Businessmans" lunch, 3 courses for 3 and 6 pence, not sure what that is in todays money.

[mikey]

Originally posted by rainbow2411

we used to go to the Peacock in the Wicker for the "Businessmans" lunch, 3 courses for 3 and 6 pence, not sure what that is in todays money.

 

17.5p

Bargain

 

Decimal to old money converter

[Dunlop St]

In the late 50s I was a copper and one night I had cause to enter the Rickshaw - the front door was open! The upper floor was used as accommodation by several of the waiters who became quite worried when I walked inti their room, after knocking mind.

I used the place regularly after that.

[YOYO s2]

I think the first cninese was the WELCOME on West Bar

[Falls]

the rickshaw cafe was just off west street, at the junction of Eldon Street and Broomhall street, at the side of the old Royal Hospital (where the new Royal plaza and tesco is now)

 

You can still see the old Gas lamp which stood outside the building.

 

PT

 

Before the Rickshaw(s), there was The Oriental (also know affectionally as Sunburnt Harry's) on Langsett Road but I don't know whether you would call it a Chinese Restaurant. I used to eat there farely regularly.

 

The Rickshaw mentioned above by PT (lets call it Rickshaw 1) was certainly the first Chinese Restaurant in what might be called the centre of town (c1957). It was very popular because:

 

It was the only one. It was certainly one of the very few places around that offered something different to the traditional English (meat and two veg.) that we had all grown up on.

 

It was open seven days a week and in the evening (remember all the other restaurant in town in 1957 were locked-up tight by 6pm every night, particularly on Saturday night)

 

It offered good food at reasonable prices.

 

Rickshaw 2 (corner of Broomhall Street and Devonshire Street) opened a few years later but didn't last long.

 

The Zing Vaa opened soon after Rickshaw 1. It's big attraction, apart from the quality of the food and service, was that it was really in the middle of town and more up-market that the Rickshaw.

 

Places Like the Welcome on West Bar and the Peacock in the Wicker came shortly after the Rickshaw. The Businessman's lunches (Mon-Sat) were very popular. The Peacock used to be hopping at lunch time on Saturday.

 

I think that you can credit the Rickshaw, and the other Chinese restaurants that came later, with totally changing the eating habits of a generation of Sheffielders and everyone who came later. Before that, if you wanted Chinese

food, Indian or anything the least bit different, you had to go to Manchester, Birmingham or London.

 

Falls