Column: Love, loss and noodles at Seven Treasures

Why did the sudden closing of Chinatown’s Seven Treasures, home of the cult favorite 554, leave long lines and such grief? After all, the iconic dishes live on at Wonton Gourmet in Des Plaines.

Their story was our story. And it’s an untold story of love, loss and noodles.

Chung and Kai Au owned a wonton noodle shop in Hong Kong before they moved to Chicago. Chung, the family patriarch, immigrated first. Kai, the matriarch, closed the shop and then followed soon after with four of their five children, three daughters and the youngest son. Benjamin, their oldest, who was over 21, would be separated from his family for years due to U.S. immigration policy quotas.

In 1981 Chung and Kai opened their new wonton noodle shop on Cermak Road in Chinatown and called it Seven Treasures.

I had long wondered about the name. While the number 7 is considered lucky in Western culture, the number 8 is considered luckiest in Chinese culture. Even the new temporary Bally’s Chicago Casino in River North named its Asian noodle restaurant Kitchen 888.

The parents chose the restaurant’s name not to honor their new culture but for the seven members of their immediate family, including the son they had to leave behind.

They ran the small storefront with help from their three daughters — Annie, Grace and Jessie.

Four years later, Kai saw a lot for sale on Wentworth Avenue. The couple bought the property, built a new building and moved their restaurant over in 1986.

In 1987, Benjamin finally immigrated from Hong Kong to Chicago with his wife, and immediately began working at the family restaurant.

Seven Treasures eventually branched out with a second location, run by youngest son Rocky, in the then-new Chinatown Square mall, which opened in 1993. That location would close after just a few years. The space is now occupied by the excellent Sichuanese and Cantonese restaurant MCCB.

But another legacy would rise.

Sometime in the mid-90s, a customer became obsessed with dish number 554 on the menu. As a white man who did not speak Chinese, he simply called the plate — with hot steamed rice, thick char siu, runny fried eggs and drizzled soy sauce — the 554. He brought fellow students from the University of Illinois at Chicago and they would all order the dish. It became so popular that everyone began calling it the 554, notably in English, not Chinese.

Benjamin said the customer became a regular over the years, but he doesn’t know his name.

The 554 further transcended language and cultural barriers with a surprisingly endearing entry in Urban Dictionary.

Twenty-one years after founding Seven Treasures, which became a home away from home for a generation in Chinatown, the family lost their matriarch when Kai Au died in 2002.

They would carry on her legacy uninterrupted for another generation, until the first pandemic shutdown in March 2020. Chinatown was hit first and hardest, more by racism than COVID-19.

Seven Treasures closed for 11 days. Benjamin said somewhat wistfully that they rested. The restaurant reopened with takeout only.

They would fully reopen serving the 554, wonton noodles and more until 2 a.m. as one of the few late-night restaurants to survive the pandemic.

That is until Benjamin, who had long taken over the business from his father, said it was time to retire.

“My brother-in-law has been working since first he arrived in America,” said Frank Ting, owner of Wonton Gourmet in Des Plaines. “And he hasn’t taken any vacation in the last 20 years.”

Seven Treasures was open from 11 a.m. to 2 a.m., seven days a week, 365 days a year.

“And I say, ‘Do you want to retire?’ He said, ‘Yes, of course. I want to have some regular life now,’” Ting said. “That’s why he decided to close and to rent it out.”

Family patriarch Chung Au, 97, born in 1926, visited the restaurant in its last days. As did Ting, despite his own retirement, to help out with the crush of customers.

We knew the end was coming. But when Seven Treasures suddenly closed permanently on Aug. 12, days earlier than planned, “due to staff shortages,” they said, we were still collectively left with a sense of ambiguous loss.

I think we’ve come to expect the lifespan of a lot of things — people, pets, and even personal or professional relationships. But what’s the lifespan of restaurants?

The lifespan of restaurants remains tied to generations. Especially when it comes to family-owned immigrant restaurants, which are becoming rare in the neighborhood where big global brands are taking over spaces.

For example, Happy Lamb Hot Pot, the restaurant leasing the Seven Treasures space, will move from its current location in Chinatown after renovations. Two other locations, in Lincoln Park and in Naperville, are also part of the Little Sheep Group with hundreds of restaurants worldwide.

Chinatown in Chicago has been touted as booming, as others fade. But that’s only part of the story. The neighborhood still struggles with gentrification and displacement, especially with The 78 mega-development looming next to Ping Tom Park.

Wonton Gourmet is such a rarity, as another Chinese American immigrant family that owns the property and built a building for their business.

Ting married into the Seven Treasures family. He met his wife Grace when she worked at the original location on Cermak Road.

He would go on to open his first restaurant, House of Fortune also in Chinatown, before selling that business and three others in the city. He eventually opened Wonton Gourmet in 1993.

“I learned from my father-in-law so I don’t want to open in Chinatown,” Ting said, laughing. “Wonton Gourmet is like a duplicate Seven Treasures restaurant in the suburbs.”

It’s not quite the same, with a modern dining room and branded dishware. But when Mom Chu first tasted the suburban wonton noodle soup years ago, she suspected they were related, long before I confirmed the lineage.

I grew up working in my extended family’s restaurants. They depended on cheap, if not free, labor to provide a better life for the next generation. That has always been the conflict.

Ting’s own adult children don’t want to take over the family business. But he’s found a successor and partner in his godson, Bin Liu, who is also a partner at MingHin and Jess Cafe. The latter happens to be my neighborhood Chinese staple on the Northwest Side.

Liu is overseeing the addition of the 554 to the menu at Wonton Gourmet, as well as the Seven Treasures chile oil by popular demand, and even merch with T-shirts so far.

It’s not the same as a grungy late night in Chinatown, yet the legacy lives on. Because it was always more than just the food, but was also all about the food ― especially when untold stories can finally be heard.

1405 Elmhurst Road, Des Plaines

847-427-1183

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wontongourmet.com

Open: Open: Monday to Thursday, 11 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 11:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.; Sunday 11:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Prices: Seven Treasures chile oil, $6; wonton noodles, $9.35; 554, $12.50

Noise: Conversation-friendly

Accessibility: Wheelchair accessible with restrooms on single level

lchu@chicagotribune.com

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