Weylu’s – a three-story, pagoda-topped restaurant complex
Opened: 1989
Closed: 1998
Nine miles north of downtown Boston, the largest Chinese restaurant ever built, 60,000 square feet with 1,500 seats
For more than 20 years, Weylu’s stood atop a small hill on Route 1 like a fortress guarding the orange tyrannosaurus rex statue at Route 1 Mini Golf across the street. Set far back from Route 1, the massive 50,000-square-foot Chinese pagoda was easily the most opulent restaurant in town, with its valet parking by attendants in tuxedos and the giant red pagoda entrance that was hard to miss by the nearly 89,000 vehicles that passed by on the busy highway daily.
A circular driveway led up a hill to an imposing drive-through pagoda. Customers waited in line for hours to be served or made reservations weeks in advance. Customers rode an escalator replete with huge golden dragons entwining a pillar, to the main dining room, where arched footbridges spanned a waterfall and a Chinese rock garden. The restaurant offered great food and atmosphere among fish filled indoor fountains, with gold accents at every turn, fixtures from China and pricey Asian art. The menu included Mandarin, Sichuan and Hong Kong-style dishes. In its heyday, the restaurant was serving 5,000 meals a day.
The super-sized restaurant complex was the idea of Rick and Wilma Chang, successful restaurateurs who immigrated to the United States from Brazil after fleeing Communist China. Modeled after the Forbidden Palace in Beijing, construction began on Weylu’s in 1986. Three years and $13 million ($25 million in 2015 dollars) later, the lavish restaurant filled with marble and silk finally opened to much acclaim with a performance by the Peking Acrobats.
Weylu’s ran into trouble when the recession hit in the early 1990s. Consumers cut back on eating out, mortgage and tax payments were missed, eventually the Bank of China foreclosed and Weylu’s was shuttered in 1998, after a bankruptcy court ordered its liquidation.
In 2004, $5 million was spent restoring the building to its former grandeur. The interior was renovated – floors refinished, walls replastered, ceilings repaired, thousands of water damaged tiles were replaced and broken sprinklers were fixed. The site reopened as East Manor and then again as New East Manor, both ventures failed relatively quickly.
In 2006, the Ming Lam family opened another Chinese restaurant named Jin. The grand opening was a spectacle that featured performances by Dionne Warwick and local high school bands. Jin contained a 350-capacity nightclub, Orchid, which turned out to be a nightmarish property for the owners as it was the scene of shootings and brawls from nearly the time it opened until the day it closed.
Like its predecessors, Jin did not last very long. With its liquor license revoked and no certificate to operate, Jin shut down in 2009 and the property went dark.
Sadly, I received news just 2 weeks after my visit on August 28th, 2015, that the site had been demolished.
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