Howard Wong’s
Howard Wong’s Famous Chinese Restaurant was located at 2701 Southtown Drive (494 and Penn), in Bloomington.
The Dragon’s Head Lounge featured Don Taft nightly for your singing and listening entertainment from 1967 to 1970.
Menu from 1967
THE DRAGON
Wong’s was advertised as “Where you see the World’s only Twin Headed Flaming Dragon.”
According to the book Six Feet Under: A Graveyard Guide to Minnesota, the sculpture was created by MN artist Donald Danielson. The dragon breathed fire, propelled by gas, until the energy crisis of 1974.
When Howard Wong’s was sold, the Dragon was moved to Moorhead State University (now the University of Minnesota at Moorhead), where the team name is the Dragons.
MANDARIN YEN
Howard Wong’s became the Mandarin Yen.
The bar was called the Ginseng.
Louis Lee ran a comedy club called Belly Laughs in the basement. Lee has been running Acme Comedy Club for many years. The club featured local comics Scott Hansen, Louie Anderson, and Wild Bill Bauer as headliners, among others. Future national comics also appeared there, such as Andrew Dice Clay, Dennis Miller, and Tom Arnold.
Alan Larson:
That building has been demolished for many years. Then the DC Hey Computer building when in . That was back in the nineties. Probably early nineties if I remember. About the time the putt putt golf course closed. And that little strip North of Target went in its place.