Southwest Metro Family-run Restaurants

Photo: Tate Carlson

Ben, Tin Tat and Alex Kwan of Red Moon Chinese Cafe

For mom-and-pop restaurant owners, the demands are so great, the hours so long, it’s a wonder any of them find time to raise a family. When they do, the children are often immersed into the environment right from the start.

What starts out feeling like play—standing on top of a bucket to wash dishes or sitting at a booth counting coupons—quickly becomes the grown-up kind of work, wearing the many hats that members of any restaurant family learn to wear: cook, dishwasher, server, host, bartender, bookkeeper and boss.

While these restaurant families clearly live, eat and breathe the restaurant business even when the lights are out and the doors are locked, it’s also true that as a tight-knit unit, when the stakes go way beyond the obligations of ordinary employment, they experience a level of passion and imperativeness in their work that’s hard to come by in any desk job.

From Hong Kong to the Land of 10,000 Lakes

Ben Kwan, the eldest son of Tin Tat Kwan of Red Moon Chinese Café, got his first taste of restaurant life as an infant, in the playpen that was set up at his father’s first restaurant at 54^th and Penn in Minneapolis. “That kind of established us as a family restaurant,” Ben quips.

The restaurant was sold in 1996 and the Kwan family opened Red Moon in Eden Prairie in 1997, where Tin Tat does the cooking. He first learned the craft working in Hong Kong restaurants before he moved to the United States in the mid-70s. Here, he has won over the hearts of local diners with dishes like the BBQ pork Cantonese style chow mein, which unlike the Midwestern-style “sloppy” chow mein, lies on a bed of pan-fried noodles, giving the dish a golden-brown crispiness while the sauce from the stir fried pork and vegetables slowly seeps in.

When he first came to Minnesota, Kwan worked his way around a few Twin Cities restaurants, including the Village Wok near the U of M campus and David Fong’s in Bloomington. In his own restaurants, he has always been in charge of the kitchen, while Ben has handled many business and marketing elements, like website design and bookkeeping, in addition to hands-on duties at the restaurant. “Whenever [my two brothers and I] are around we are just expected to pick up whatever needs to be done, whether that’s prep work in the kitchen or waiting on customers,” Ben says.

Now a law student, he also educates his dad on the way small business has changed in the past 10 years. “My dad is really an old school business guy, the kind who does things on a handshake,” says Ben, who has given his father a new perspective on web presence and how to win the loyalty of customers in an age where the Internet provides a megaphone for any unhappy diner with a complaint.

Red Moon Chinese Café, 582 Prairie Center Dr., Eden Prairie; 952.941.6556

Staying True: Legendary Burgers at Lions Tap

When Bert and Bonnie Noterman assumed ownership of the Lions Tap (then Lyon’s Tap) in 1977, Bonnie was pregnant with their son, Matt. At the time, it was only about a third of the restaurant it is today, before the couple put on two additions to the dining room. Shortly after they took over, they started adding their secret seasoning to the ground beef, and suddenly customers couldn’t get enough of the Eden Prairie restaurant’s burgers.

The family attributes part of their success to being true to the things they do best. Very little has changed on the menu since the days when Matt was a young child sitting in a booth counting coupons for his mom and dad. “We put a lot of thought in little items,” Bonnie says. “Even a change as minor as adding mushrooms to the menu wasn’t taken lightly.” Like all decisions, the family weighed it out amongst themselves and the many loyal staff whom they treat like an extension of their family. In return, they rarely have to worry about filling staff vacancies. “On any given day,” says Matt, “we have more than 100 years of experience between the staff members on the floor.”

Being born into the business, Matt has had a chance to do everything in the 22 years that he’s officially been on the payroll, from busing tables to cooking in the kitchen, cashiering, serving, bartending and now, managing. With the fresh perspective of a new generation, he has taken the lead on implementing some ideas of his own, including the addition of a craft beer list and the use of social media.

For his parents, who Matt refers to as “semi-retired” but are still very much involved in daily operations of the restaurant, putting trust in their son as general manager means they can actually take a vacation once in awhile.

Lion’s Tap, 16180 Flying Cloud Dr., Eden Prairie; 952.934.5299

Share this Article

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
•