"The Café - Chinese Fondly Remembered" by Keith Dyon

Antler Cafe

Pretty near every town or village had its  Chinese Cafe and that was the case in our little village of Antler in Southern Saskatchewan.  There had been a cafe for several years but I recall, it was located in a building which my Dad had built for a barber shop and poolroom.
About 1918 the Chinese proprietors had to get out of the building they were in and they made a deal to rent my Dad's building.  Dad bought and moved into another location alongside it.
The two Chinese people I remember most were 'Gee Boy' and Jim Yee, who ran the cafe in the 20's and into the Dirty Thirties.  In the earlier days it was a thriving place; even in the 30's it was still a good cafe.  You could get a full meal:  steak, potatoes, bread & butter, coffee and a piece of pie - all for 35 cents!!!
Business slackened off some in the 30's and sometimes one of these fellows would go somewhere else and there would be just one running the whole place.  Whichever one, Gee or Jim, they both liked to play poker and there were lots of opportunities in Antler.  

If there was a game coming up on a Sunday, for instance, Jim or Gee would get me to look after the cafe for that day.  This I enjoyed!  Not only did he give me a couple of bucks but I had all I could eat:  ham sandwiches, pop, and a piece of that apple pie - a quarter of a thick pie and ice cream on top!!  Sometimes one did not eat too well in those days and this was a special treat!
Those good Chinese souls put up with a lot too.  There were bootleggers in town and there was a lot of booze around.  Most of those guys gathered around the cafe and the poolroom.  As a result, many fights broke out both in and out of the building, resulting sometimes in broken showcases, booths and chairs.
The cafe was the gathering place for men and boys - especially after supper.  Sundays, holidays, etc, sometimes playing cards or rolling dice for nickels and dimes.
One night, along with quite a few locals, I witnessed a near-stabbing!  Two characters came into the cafe arguing.  I guess they had been at it for some time.  In tim, when one of them turned to light a match on the stove, the other guy (one of three local bootleggers) whipped out a butcher knife and was about to plunge it into his antagonist.  Somebody yelled and another guy knocked the knife flying.  The other fellow, who was drinking  a cherry pop, turned around and knocked the knife man into a stall seat and bounced him over the head with his bottle!  He fled the scene.
The next day the Mounties came, as somebody reported the incident, but the police could not get anybody to say they had seen anything.  There were four of us young guys sitting at the table when the policeman came and I was the only one who had witnessed the affair, and I was scared.  The Mountie asked the three others what they had seen but none of them had been present.  I was shaking!  What was I going to say?  But lo and behold, he passed me up.  Was I relieved!
That was just one incident.  Another time two big men got into a squabble  which turned out to be more of a wrestling match but they knocked over the coal and wood heater with its string of pipes.  I'm telling you - there were Chinese words voiced THAT day!!  Soot all over EVERYTHING!!  There were many such occurrences, some I saw, some I was told.
In later years, Jim took up curling and one time my dad, Charlie Dyon, took Jim on his rink to the Brandon Bonspiel.  They only played a game or two when Jim slipped, fell and broke his arm.  That finished his curling in that 'spiel but he got a cast and stayed the rest of the week with his friends.
Another time a local guy took Jim to Regina to the Bonspiel, that terrible winter of '46/'47.  Lloyd Saunders, the local sportscaster, interviewed Jim, called him 'the Curling Chinaman".  A full length photo of Jim was published in the Leader Post.
Jim ran the cafe, with some local helpers for the next couple of years, then sold it to a local guy.  Jim moved into a hotel in Regina where he lived for a year or so until his death.  The cafe carried on for a few years but eventually closed and in 1995, the old building burned down.
If it could have talked, what yarns it could have spun.  Gee Boy had left Antler just before the war to a job at a hotel in Swastika, Ontario.