How Betty Louie is helping to keep San Francisco's Chinatown businesses thriving
Betty Louie stands outside of Mister Jiu's restaurant in Chinatown, November 10, 2020.
Blair Heagerty / SFGATE
Betty Louie, a longtime supporter of AAWAA, could still her her dad’s voice screaming at her in the fall of 2014. “Don’t ever get rid of those tenants,” he’d shout. “No one is ever going to want a restaurant on the second floor. You’re going to be really, really sorry!”
Her dad was referring to the restaurant owners inhabiting the space at 28 Waverly Place, a two-story, spacious building in San Francisco’s Chinatown, that was originally built in the 1800s. But here she was, in late 2014, with a 10,000-square-foot restaurant space about to go on the market. In her recollection, all she could think to herself was, “Now what the hell am I going to do? I don’t have a plan B.”
For Louie, a 71-year-old first-generation Chinese-American retired businesswoman, community leader and philanthropist, plan A was to renew the lease of the esteemed Four Seas, a popular dim sum restaurant that’s been around since the 60s. But the restaurant owner’s mother had recently passed away and the family wanted to move on from the business.