Buoy Lee, Founder of the Hong Kong Restaurant, Dies at 90

Mary (Buoy) Lee, the founder and matriarch of the Harvard Square landmark Hong Kong Chinese restaurant, a favorite haunt of students and locals alike for more than six decades, died on Aug. 17 in Cambridge. She was 90.

Lee died of a stroke, according to Paul Lee, her oldest son and the restaurant’s manager. In honor of Lee’s passing, the Kong, as the restaurant is affectionately known among Harvard students, closed on Aug. 25, the day of her burial.

The Hong Kong restaurant. By Varnel L Antoine

“She was always very strong, she was loving but sort of tough on us. She would always negotiate, always try to get better prices, she was very much a businesswoman,” Paul Lee said, reflecting on his mother’s life. “She was always pushing and thinking how can we do something better.”

Buoy Lee was born on Dec. 10, 1925 in poverty in rural Canton, China, the oldest of seven siblings. By the time she reached middle school, she was forced to abandon her studies to help take care of her family. At age 20, she immigrated to the United States to make a new life for herself. At the time of her arrival, she could not speak, write, or read English.

“I came over here, I didn’t know nothing, I was so scared when I came,” Buoy Lee told The Crimson in 2014 on the occasion of her restaurant’s 60th anniversary. “I was born in China poor—no money, no nothing. That’s why when I came here I didn’t mind working hard.”

Lee was an intelligent, warm, and elegant woman with a tireless work ethic, said Denise A. Jillson, the executive director of the Harvard Square Business Association.

“It’s such a warm and wonderful memory that I have of Mrs. Lee,” Jillson said. “She cared about people and she worked really hard, but she was very kind and very giving and she was also very fierce… a strong, lovely woman.”

When they first settled in Massachusetts, Lee and her husband, Jimmy (Sen) Lee, jointly ran a laundry shop in Brighton. After walking past the Hong Kong’s current location on 1238 Mass. Ave. one day in 1954, however, Buoy Lee was inspired to open a Chinese restaurant on the property, which she said had “feng shui.”

At the time, Harvard Square was a poor business environment, with “nobody...walk[ing] around,” Buoy Lee said. Prophetically, she predicted Harvard Square would later become a “very busy place.”

Buoy Lee, her husband, and three other partners—none of whom as of 2014 held a share in the business—officially opened the restaurant in 1954. The Hong Kong was comprised of only a single dining room then, before eventually expanding to three floors.

Despite its small size, the Hong Kong was an immediate success. In 1956, at her insistence, Lee’s husband Jimmy was able to secure a bank loan and buy out the other partners. The restaurant has remained in family hands ever since, and is currently owned and managed by Paul Lee and his two siblings.

“She has a special place in the Harvard community,” Bill Bartley, the general manager of Mr. Bartley’s, a neighboring burger joint, said of Lee. “You think of the generations of people that [the Hong Kong restaurant] served, it takes strong leadership to keep that going, and Mrs. Lee has been part of that leadership for a long time.”

Buoy Lee leaves behind three children, eight grandchildren, and five great grandchildren. According to those who knew her, she also leaves a less tangible but equally lasting legacy in the Cambridge and Harvard Square area.

“People had first dates here, people met here and subsequently got married,” Paul Lee said, noting as well the numerous graduations and birthdays that have been celebrated at the restaurant. “I don’t think you could put in words how [the Hong Kong] has helped or affected the Cambridge community and also the Harvard community.”

Paul said he thought his mother would most like to be remembered in her role as hostess at the Hong Kong restaurant and as a friendly face for the customers entering over the decades.

“[She’d want to be remembered] as a person that you would see right at the front desk greeting you as you came in and saying ‘thank you’ and ‘have a nice day’ as you left,” Paul said. “She was always there, she was always saying hi to everybody, always talking to everybody.”