Born in Boston, Mr. Wong and his wife, Madeline, took over the Mandarin House, a former ice cream parlor on Route 1, in the 1950s and opened Kowloon in 1959, amid America’s love affair with the South Seas.
Mr. Wong designed Kowloon with ideas he gathered on a long honeymoon with his wife, including stops in Honolulu, San Francisco, and Miami, according to his family. He built a kitchen far bigger than the dining room, knowing he would one day expand.
In the restaurant’s early days, Mr. Wong cooked, and Madeline was a waitress and hostess. They were married 63 years and had six children.
“They came home one night, and I saw them dancing on the kitchen floor,’’ Donald said. “That was when Chubby Checker came up with the twist, and they showed me and my sister how to do it.’’
Madeline Wong also spent decades as a top life insurance representative for John Hancock, where in 1983 she was the first woman to earn membership in the company’s top sales club. Her husband helped launch her career in the 1950s by driving her to meet clients, according to the family.
Mr. Wong learned the restaurant business working for his parents, Goe Shing and Lem Ding, at the family’s Mai Fong restaurant near Symphony Hall in Boston.
As a boy, he studied at the Quincy School in Boston before he was sent to boarding school in Canton, China, at age 6.
He returned to Boston as a teenager and later attended the New England Aircraft School. But the restaurant business became his career. He and his father opened one of the first Japanese restaurants in Boston, creating a second-level spot called Sukiyaki above their location on Massachusetts Avenue.
Though accustomed to 16-hour workdays, Mr. Wong urged his own children to lead balanced lives.
“He would always say, ‘Don’t work too hard,’ ’’ said another son, Bob. “He knew work wasn’t everything… . He said, ‘Spend time with your family’; that was the key. He’s the best guy I’ve ever known.’’
