Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 19, 1993 TAG: 9301190265
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Ed Shamy
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
HARD LICKS ON CULINARY FRONTIER
Glenvar used to be the frontier. West of Salem on U.S. 11, the burgeoning miracle mile gave way to broader, more muscular-looking buildings where heavy industry ground its daily gears. Farther west, even they gave way to pastures, barbed wire, cattle and the broad valleys that lead to Ironto.The Glenvar Chili Shop shared some unspoken karma with its surroundings on the frontier. Where once brave men and strong women would dip into a bubbling pot of Brunswick stew, it came to pass that many would succumb to the modern trappings, quit shooting their own squirrels and opt for chili. Or chicken and dumplings. Or biscuits and gravy.
It was a no-frills diner featuring heavy, meaty foods to fuel the daily struggles of life on the frontier. State cops sat at the counter next to men from the brickyard or the warehouse and teachers from Glenvar High School. The frontier was no place for picayune socio-economic segregation. Shoulder to shoulder, frontierspeople crumbled Oyster Crackers into their chili bowls.
The chili shop closed in 1991, and then was resurrected under new ownership as The Classic Glenvar Chili Shop.
Alas, the neighborhood had changed and the karma had gone with it.
U.S. 11 was getting widened from two to four lanes. There's a traffic signal going up outside Bert's Barbeque at the corner of Diuguid's Lane.
Civilization has leapfrogged from the Salem city line beyond the Glenvar Chili Shop.
Chili shop II didn't last; Glenvar is no longer the frontier.
In September, Lien-Dwe Lin and her husband, Dai-yu Wu, went west from their Salem home in search of a church yard sale.
They mistakenly drove a few hundred yards past the church and saw a vacant chili shop.
The couple and their two children, Fanny and Jerry, had moved from New York to the Roanoke Valley nearly three years before. He cooked at the Peking Palace restaurant; she raised the kids.
Lien and Dai rented the former chili shop.
By December, on a shoestring budget, they'd opened their own restaurant in that landmark building. China Express is open seven days a week. Only Lien and Dai work there. They close in midafternoon for a couple of hours so they can pick the kids up at school and bring them back to the restaurant.
They don't deliver, because that would leave one person alone in the restaurant.
Inside, the place hasn't changed much, save for the Chinese characters painted on the windows. Same eight swivel stools. Same four wooden tables.
But the place smells different. No more pots of stew. No more baking biscuits. Now it smells like broccoli in a wok and shrimp browning over a lanky, licking blue flame.
Lien and Dai aren't getting rich. But they're still afloat.
And every day that their tiny restaurant survives tells us more than a thousand sheaves of census statistics.
Either the Glenvar frontier has moved or frontier people are a lot different than they used to be. Moo goo gai pan wouldn't have stood a chance here in the old days.