Fears for the future of retro Chinese dining after blaze guts Sundoo in Townsville
The gutting by fire of a much-loved Chinese restaurant in North Queensland after 50 years has left a family heartbroken.
The Sundoo Chinese Restaurant in Townsville was badly damaged by a fire that began in the back of the building on Monday.
Largely untouched for decades, its distinctive decor made it a time capsule of Cantonese restaurant chic from 1970s Australia.
The devastation at the Sundoo comes amid a growing appreciation of — and nostalgia for — older-style Chinese restaurants, as their numbers dwindle.
Jason Liang said his parents Paul and Jenny had run the business seven days a week for about 27 years.
He said they were devastated that much of what they had worked for had been destroyed by the fire.
"[The Sundoo] was pretty much my second home — after school I'd come here and do my homework, I worked here through my teenage years," Mr Liang said.
"We watched a lot of regular customers grow up; we watched people come in with their parents, then all of a sudden they bring their girlfriend and now they have kids.
'We've just watched them for 27 years, so there was a strong sense of community.
"At the moment we're heartbroken and devastated."
Mr Liang said there was a surge in customers at the Sundoo after it was featured on the Retro Chinese Restaurants Facebook page, celebrating the interior design and food of mid-century Chinese restaurants.
The group's founder Kelly Parsons said she was saddened to hear of the fire at the Sundoo, which she described as one of the best of its type in Australia.
Ms Parsons said the group's 20,000 members shared her fascination and grew up visiting restaurants just like the Sundoo.
"I'm eternally fascinated by the … kitsch — the plastic flowers, wallpaper, fancy ceilings, wood panelling and, of course, the food."
Chinese restaurants have also played a key social and economic role in regional communities across Australia, dating back to at least the 1890s.
Writer and broadcaster Jennifer Wong has written about regional Australian-Chinese restaurants in Chopsticks or Fork, based on the ABC iview series.
She said they signified the contribution of Chinese immigration to regional communities, which stepped up in the 1970s.
"Back then there were probably only about 50,000 people of Chinese heritage in the country, and there would have been around 13 or 14 million Australian people, so a very tiny per cent of the population," Wong said.
She said many would have happy memories of meals in those dining rooms, even as tastes had started to change.
"[We are moving] further and further away from a time when these were some of the only restaurants in town," Wong said.
"There's a nostalgia and a fondness for those first early food memories."
Writer and presenter Benjamin Law, who grew up in his parents' food businesses in regional Queensland, said Chinese restaurants laid the foundation for many members of the Chinese diaspora in Australia.
"When I was growing up on the Sunshine Coast in the 80s and 90s, there were so few Chinese people, besides my family, and most of us that were there were growing up in and amongst Chinese restaurants," he said.
Law said people were always nostalgic for Australia's past, and that included the local Chinese restaurant.
"They might be ostensibly Chinese restaurants, but they're very Australian restaurants too, when you think about it," he said.
Jason Liang said the Sundoo's future was still unclear, as his parents owned the business but not the building.
He said the restaurant's closure — for now at least — was the end of an era, and its success over the decades was a testament to his parents' hard work.
"They've told me over and over again that it's really hard work [and] we're doing this so you can have a better education," Mr Liang said.
"Most of the kids don't take over the business anymore — they actually do another trade or profession or make their own business. he said.
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