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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us November 14, 2005 Essentially Ashland A Wok on the Plaza An old Ashland favorite, The Dahlia, birthed a second generation of good service Lance Pugh In 1972 Annette and I, having built up an extreme urge for Chinese food, walked up the Plaza, there to order up a storm of succulence at The Dahlia. As practicing vegetarians, we furtively stole our way inside, then sat toward the rear, doing our best to blend into the seating and become invisible. Sam Wong, the owner, seemed to understand our plight and catered to our wishes without comment. After an appetizer plate of barbecue pork, egg rolls, fried shrimp and mar far chicken, we made a transition into a dinner special of soup, almond fried chicken, barbecue pork, chicken chow mein, pineapple sweet & sour pork, deep fried shrimp, pork fried rice, mandatory fortune cookies and hot tea. As we sat and dined, we came to find out that every service organization in town seemed to frequent their banquet room, which existed in what is now the back half of Dave Bobb’s American Trails: Kiwanis, Rotary, Lions, Soroptimists, et al. congregated at the Dahlia until the Ashland Hills opened and took most of the business away. Sam opened the Dahlia at 29 N. Main St. on April 12, 1966. Formerly it was called the Plaza Café, whose name has graced a breakfast business at the Lithia Grocery, an infamous hot dog stand where Noah’s now stands and the current lunch/dinner establishment now located at 47 N. Main St., the former location of Lithia Grocery, then Tommy’s … the name has gotten around. Sam’s first two kids, Jeff and Cindy, played in and around the restaurant. Much later, Amy and Mikey added to the mix, turning the whole Plaza into their personal playground. Sam moved to the United States in 1952, making the leap from Canton, China, to Seattle, there to work for his father in the family restaurant, the Chinese Garden in the then-Chinatown. In 1957, Sam opened up The Lotus, a deli with Chinese take-out next to a liquor store in Seattle. Things went well, so much so that in 1962 he sold his position in The Lotus and went to Hong Kong, where he married his wife, Sharon. Sam and Amy Wong once ran The Dahlia in Downtown Ashland. Submitted photo By 1966, Sam was running two Chinese restaurants in Grants Pass: Hong Kong 1 and Hong Kong 2, one on the north end and the other on the south end of town. He grew restive and thought that a move to Ashland might be beneficial, though many of his friends cautioned him against such relocation. He moved to Ashland and rented what is now Quinz from Fred Kuest, then bought the building in 1976. In the early hours of a morning in 1981, I got a call saying that my business was burning down. I threw on some sweats and sped to the Plaza to discover that some kids had spilled fryer grease over the back porch of The Dahlia and set it afire. For awhile it looked like we might lose the Plaza, but with some luck and aggressive firefighting, the roaring inferno was brought under control. Thirty days later, Sam was back open, about the same time as I began sleeping normally again. In the ’80s, when Lloyd Haines and I were running the Plaza Café Hot Dog Stand, Mikey and Amy would drop by every day to see if they could earn, plead, cajole or otherwise relieve us of candy, a soda or a hot dog. We usually handed them a broom and a dustpan and turned them loose on the sidewalk, where they turned into two little dust devils in search of a snack. Once they scored their treat they vanished in a puff, though we all knew that they would be back again the next day about the time their stomachs started to grumble. Years passed as I went on to fry other fish. I lost track of Amy and Mikey. I knew that Sam had sold the Dahlia to Quichville, which became Quinz. One evening I met a friend at Martino’s (a new upper-floor bar built over Macaroni’s, which used to be Bob’s Lunch). As our stunningly beautiful waitress approached, I tried to place her in my past, but failed in the attempt. I asked and her name was … Amy. I used to make her hot dogs and now she was serving me. She matured into a striking figure and all I did was get older. Got to think about that equation. Future columns will focus on various businesses as well as key individuals and events that will lead the charge from times past to lend perspective to the revival of Ashland. Send your favorite remembrances to: [email protected]. 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