Grant will relight vintage neon sign at restaurant in SLO’s Chinatown district
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Mee Heng Low secured a $50,000 grant for preservation and external upgrades.
- $40,000 will fund neon sign restoration; $10,000 supports business operations.
- The historic restaurant's building remains for sale at a $995,000 listing price.
A historic downtown San Luis Obispo noodle shop just received $50,000 in grant funding, and it’s got big plans for the money.
Mee Heng Low, located at 815 Palm St., has been a part of SLO’s iconic Chinatown district for nearly a century.
Now, the broken neon lights showcasing the restaurant’s name need some work, and help is coming from the Backing Historic Small Restaurants grant program.
“We really needed an update, and this will provide it for us,” manager and chef Russell Kwong told The Tribune. “I don’t really have the money to pay for $50,000 worth of external upgrades, which is very much needed right now. We’re trying to revitalize Chinatown right now, and this is going to help a lot.”
The grant is offered by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and American Express. Fifty businesses from all over the United States won the funds. Kwong applied for the grant back in June and got the good news a month ago, he said.
The grant allows most of the money, $40,000, to be used for external renovations. The leftover $10,000 is for business operations. For Mee Heng Low, that means updating the long-standing neon sign above the restaurant.
“There’s not much left of Chinatown,” Kwong said. “We’re literally 30% of it, if not more, so being able to relight everything’s going to look really good. It’s going to illuminate the street, it’ll be brighter for the sidewalks and everything, a vast improvement overall.”
The neon sign above Mee Heng Low uses the original technology, with gas inside the tubes, Kwong said, so refurbishing it is an expensive venture.
“It’s got iconography that when you think about San Luis Obispo, Chinatown, you think about the Ah Louis Store, that sign probably comes to mind, and it’s just been in disrepair for a really long time, and it’s really expensive to fix it because it’s real neon,” he said. “It’s not like just the electric tubing that they use for a lot of things now. It has to be fixed to its original form, not just slapping a new sign up there.”
What’s Mee Heng Low’s history in downtown SLO’s Chinatown?
Mee Heng Low opened in 1927 with Gin Jack Keen at the helm, according to a 2020 Gin family cookbook. The operations were a family affair, passing down ownership and management duties from cousins to sons.
According to a 1957 article in the San Luis Obispo Telegram-Tribune, the original restaurant was on its last legs and demolished in September 1957, then built to its current two-story structure with two dining rooms.
In August 1998, the Gins sold the restaurant to Sehn and Kim Hyun. The couple ran Mee Heng Low for 10 years before retiring and selling it to the Kwongs in 2009, Kwong said.
Kwong is the son of the restaurant’s owner, Paul Kwong.
What’s next for the historic downtown Chinatown restaurant?
While its sign is being revamped, Mee Heng Low’s future is in flux.
That’s because the building is for sale, and while there was one showing, no one has stepped up to buy it yet.
Mee Heng Low’s building is selling for $995,000, according to Anderson & Senn Commercial Real Estate.
“Hopefully, whoever buys it cares and is willing to invest and keep me here as well,” Kwong said.
This story was originally published August 29, 2025 at 2:17 PM.