Douglas James had been working in Chinese restaurants since 1965, when he was 16 years old, and began dreaming of owning his own restaurant, according to the Shakopee Valley News on March 19, 1986. In January 1986, Douglas opened the House of Yim at 576 Marschall Road in Shakopee, said staff writer Beth Forkner-Moe.
Douglas and his family worked in Chinese restaurants. His great-uncle, Walter James, came to America in the 1890s, and opened the Nankin Cafe in Minneapolis in 1919.
Nankin Cafe was a Chinese restaurant, considered “a downtown Minneapolis landmark for eighty years,” according to Rick Nelson, in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Feb. 25, 1999. Founded by Walter James in 1919 at 15 S. Seventh Street, now the site of the Park and Shop ramp (formerly the Dayton-Radisson ramp), it was sold in 1949 to the Golden and Chalfen families.
“Walter James was born in 1892 in Olympia, Washington into a family of modest means.
“As a child he and a friend played hooky from school often until they were finally caught. At the tender age of nine he went to China with a family friend and stayed in his father’s home village of Taishan for two and a half years. When he returned, he rejoined his family and spent his teenage years around Tacoma, Seattle, and Yakima. He did odd jobs here and there, including managing a Chinese restaurant and working as an interpreter for the US Immigration Service. In the latter role he visited many Chinese steamboats that came into the Tacoma harbor. He got to know many of the Chinese sailors on board and soon was trading with them, buying silk handkerchiefs and other merchandise from them and reselling them. His budding entrepreneurship took a step forward when he was offered a position by a restaurateur from Chicago. He moved there in 1913 but did not like the city.”
He soon moved to Minneapolis and opened his first Chinese restaurant, Canton, there. In 1919 he opened his second one, Nankin Café, in downtown Minneapolis.
Nankin was a grand operation that featured antique Chinese furniture as well as a western orchestra. James created his signature dish, Nankin Chow Mein, early and it became very popular, well known far beyond Minnesota. The restaurant was highly successful, becoming a magnet for the local Chinese community, as well as a landmark for the city of Minneapolis, noted by the Chinese Heritage Foundation.
Through his Walter C. James Foundation, he gave generously to many charitable organizations in Minnesota, Chicago, and Hong Kong. In founding the Chinese American Civic Council, he hoped “to promote better citizenship, to strive for freedom and equality of all persons, to work for the civic and economic development of Chinese communities, and to foster the well-being of citizens and residents of Chinese extraction.”
In the Minneapolis Star, in August 1981, Karen Winegar noted, “The cheerful, hardcore and silent bus help are part of a crew of some two hundred workers, said to be the largest restaurant staff in town…They zoom in and out the swinging doors, zip up and down the carpeted stairs. The public never sees the thirty Nankin chefs, twenty of whom can only speak Chinese. Together, they crack out some three thousand meals daily. That’s almost a million a year. And in a town which seems to slam its shutters around 9 p.m., the Nankin could be relied upon to serve food until late at night.” The Nankin closed on Feb. 24, 1999.
Douglas James worked at the Nankin from 1965 until 1984, and then he worked at other Chinese restaurants in the area, learning more about his trade. “I learned as much as I could.” By January 1986, Douglas James opened the House of Yim at 576 Marschall Road in Shakopee.
Douglas was drafted into the Army one week after high school graduation. He spent two years in the service, including one year in Vietnam. After being discharged, Douglas used the G.I. Bill to go to Duluth Business College where he learned bookkeeping and accounting, according to the Shakopee Valley News in 1986.
The House of Yim employed ten people, including Douglas’s wife, Doris, Chan, a cook, two people who worked in the kitchen, including Lien Tam, and John Ploof, a work-study student from Shakopee Senior High School; his brother-in-law, Barton Leung, who was also learning how to run the restaurant. Five part-time wait staff included Sheryl Gulbrandson, Lona Brown, Nicky Uber, Heidi Boyd, and Stacy Anderson.
The House of Yim served food in the Cantonese style, with several selections including several kinds of chow min, sweet and sour pork, egg rolls, egg foo young, and other traditional Chinese dishes.
Douglas’s philosophy about business was, “I stress being honest. You also need to have quality food and services and a good atmosphere, so people like being there.”
The location is now the New Dragon Cafe.