Gene’s Family Restaurant receives outpouring of support after being listed for sale
By: Emily Stewart
Gene’s Family Restaurant’s loyal customers are hoping to get their favourite dishes one last time before the restaurant is sold.
In an Aug. 18 Facebook post, Ken Gene, owner of Gene’s Family Restaurant, announced that the restaurant is up for sale online. Nearly a week later, on Aug. 25, Gene announced via social media that the restaurant needed to replenish their inventory and ran out of food, including egg rolls and their Korean shrimp, plus nearly out of chicken balls and other inventory. The team took Aug. 26 off to catch up.
Gene said the original announcement of the restaurant being up for sale reached more than 120,000 views on social media and brought up lots of emotions and memories.
"Stratford's only like 30,000 so it's just been pretty overwhelming on the support front from the community saying how much we've been part of the community,” he said. “People call on the phone and they're emotional on the phone. People have come in and they're doing their last meal at Gene's type of thing. I’ve been talking to the customers and people are crying. It's unbelievable seeing how much the restaurant has impacted their family and it's kind of mind-boggling at this point."
He added that the restaurant was preparing for business as usual and that the response was unexpected.
"Wednesday and Thursday are usually just kind of okay days but they're like weekend days. We were packed. Every day has been kind of busy right now,” Gene said.
Customers are even making holiday plans by placing takeout orders at Gene’s Restaurant for Christmas and New Year’s.
"Christmas Eve is one of our busiest days and people are panicking that they might not get their Christmas Eve orders this year and our first Christmas Eve order came in July and now in the last week we've probably taken another 10 or more Christmas Eve orders and now we've got a New Year’s Eve order,” Gene said. “I don't know if we're still around then. I would like to finish off doing Christmas Eve, New Year's Eve, New Year's Day, and then we'll end it down but it all depends on what happens with the sale.”
Gene’s Family Restaurant, which offers a variety of Chinese and Canadian dishes, has been a household name in Stratford for 56 years after Larry and Rae Gene, Ken’s parents, immigrated from China and started Gene’s in 1970 at 38 Erie St. The restaurant moved to its current location on 81 Ontario St. in 1985 and Ken took over in 2004.
"I'm really thankful for the support of the community,” he said. “We've been here for 56 years. Just the loyalty of our customers. Haven't seen in a lot of people for a long time and they're starting to come in just basically saying their goodbyes, their last times in the restaurant. That's pretty touching for me and the Gene family thanks Stratford and our customers for the support through all these years."
Gene’s Family Restaurant is open from 4:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. from Wednesday to Saturday, and 3:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Sundays.
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