SAUGUS — 2025 marks the 75th year the Kowloon Restaurant has been in the town, attracting patrons from across the country. It remains the largest complex in the United States that serves Asian cuisine.
“My grandparents started in 1950, and a lot of people know the story…and now it’s out 75th year so we’re planning some type of celebration,” Bobby Wong, co-owner of Kowloon said.
Wong explained that the restaurant will have a long list of events throughout the year to commemorate the anniversary.
To kickstart the celebration, Kowloon will be hosting Karaoke Tuesdays, Wednesday Night Musical Bingo, Thursday’s 80’s & 90’s Mix with DJ Spinelli, and Friday & Saturday Night DJs “Rockin the Weekend.” These events will go until the end of May.
“We also plan on doing the concert series again with local bands,” he said.
Wong continued that the main event being planned was a large gala, which they plan on calling the Kowloon 75th Anniversary.
“It will be like a block party theme where we’re going to invite a lot of people, and people can buy tickets. We haven’t come up with the exact entertainment yet. We’re looking for a couple of more national bands, maybe one or two of them,” Wong said.
He said that there would most likely be 1,000 plus people and they’re looking to host it outdoors and are looking into bussing people into the lot.
“Just before COVID we were planning out our 70th anniversary party in 2020. It was going to be the same theme, a huge block party outside with music. We had permission from the School Committee to park cars in the [Saugus Middle High School] lot and have shuttle busses,” Wong said.
The restaurant had been ready to celebrate their 70th milestone, but COVID had put a stop to the planning.
“We’re going to try and get permission from the town to use the parking lot again…We’re in the preliminary stages now. This will probably happen in August,” he said.
The plan is to begin preparations and eventually announce the acts as they schedule them.
“This will be like the huge anniversary parties that we used to run years ago. Even before that though, there’s a lot of things we’re planning on doing to commemorate the 75th,” he said.
As of right now the restaurant is looking into different souvenirs that are similar to the sneakers they released last year. They’re also having an event to fund for a charity, which is still in the works.
“We don’t know how much longer we’re going to be here so we’re going to make it a fun year,” he said.
When asked how it feels to be hitting this milestone Wong said it hasn’t really hit him yet.
“I think it resonates more with the customer base…There’s not a lot of businesses that have been open 75 years with the same ownership. If you asked me 20 years ago I would have said ‘It [turning 75] is going to be amazing,’ but now it’s kind of like growing old like ‘Geeze, that guys going to be 60 or 70,'” he said.
“It’s a nice milestone and it’s nice to be recognized by a lot of people…A lot of people, customers, ask us ‘How many years have you been here,’ and we say 75 and to them it’s a much bigger thing,” Wong said.
However, Wong did say that, for him and his family, it’s a nice feeling to be able to say they’ve survived 75 years.
“We’re honoring the fact that we’ve been here so long, it’s not going to last forever, so that’s why we cherish every year that we have,” he said.
