Toledo once had such an active night life that a small magazine was published to keep track of it. Toledo Nite Life helped keep patrons of dining, dancing, and drinks aware of what each club and joint was offering. I’m not sure how long Toledo Nite Life existed – I have only seen one issue from 1947 and one from 1948. If the December 25, 1947 issue that I studied in depth was any indicator, Toledo had a many faceted social scene in those postwar years.
In that Christmas issue, the Top Hat Nite Club on St. Clair featured music by “The Famed Klingensmith Family” and had no cover charge. At Brady’s Bar on Sylvania Avenue, Joe Brady was offering a “Gala New Year’s Eve Party” with noisemakers and favors for all. Hats and noisemakers could also be had at the Stardust Inn on Phillips, where nightly dancing could be had to music by Skippy Emline’s Star Dusters. Ka-See’s Night Club featured Jimmy Harry’s Orchestra “for your pleasure.” The 1103 Bar (at 1103 Detroit Avenue) invited dancers to “Swing and Sway to American and Polish Music and Jive.” Further out, The Tivoli at Monroe near Secor offered “Toledo’s Only Smorgasboard,” coupled with Royal Miller on a Hammond Organ. The list goes on and on.
Of special note was the party at the Kin Wa Low. The name means “lovely flowering place” in Cantonese, and the restaurant had a four decade run. “Ha Sun Loo opened the restaurant in a single storefront in 1913. It became so popular it eventually expanded to three full dining rooms seating as many as 200 people, plus a bandstand and a dance floor that could be raised a few feet to serve as a stage.” Serving American and Chinese food, many Toledoans got their first taste of Chinese culture at the Kin Wa Low. The supper club was a venue for singing stars such as Ella Fitzgerald, Bobby Darin, Patti Page, and Johnny Maddox. Keeping late hours, the Kin Wa Low offered floor shows at 7:30 & 10:00 pm, plus 1 am. On weeknights, there was no cover charge, just 50c on Saturday nights, and a $1.50 if there was a nationally prominent act was showing.
On Christmas Day, the Kin Wa Low featured Don Smith and his Orchestra, as seen in the advertisement reproduced here. It also offered “a Great All-Star Fun Revue!” The Kin Wa Low was not just singers; comedy acts, jugglers, even a contortionist were featured. In the Christmas week “fun revue,” Bernie Green, “Toledo’s favorite M. C. Mirthmaker” introduced the acts. They included Ann Craig, a “singing comedienne,” Yvonne & Victor, singers, and The Pauline Parks Dancers, “five dancing darlings.”
The Kin Wa Low must have been a very festive place for “dinner and a show” on that long ago Christmas. All good things come to an end, however, and the restaurant closed in 1962, a victim of television and a change in the way the facility was taxed. The son of founder Ha Sun Loo, Howard Loo, died in January 2017. Mr. Loo had begun his working life at the Kin Wa Low, and later ran his own restaurant, H’Loo’s Steakhouse. According to his son, he remembered the Kin Wa Low as a great place to work and a great place to visit. And for all of us, whether with personal memories or just to have read about it, to remember when downtown Toledo was full of bars, restaurants, stage shows, and supper clubs.
[Quote from Toledo Blade, April 23, 2010. See also David Yonke, Lost Toledo, pp. 80-81.]
