The owner of Gene’s Restaurant in Stratford, Ont. is ready to retire after more than 50 in the business. Ken Gene started out in the kitchen back in 1970. “When we first opened up, it was a couple days after my eighth birthday,” he told CTV News. “I started working for a dollar a day. It was $7 a week back then, washing dishes, preparing vegetables.” His parents moved the restaurant to its current location on Ontario Street in 1975. Ken took over the ownership of Gene’s in the early 2000s. Now, more than five decades after he first started, Ken has decided to walk away. But he is not in any rush. “We could actually go for a few more years the way we’re doing it now, but I’m getting a little older, so I don’t want to wait till I’m 70 years old to get rid of it,” he said. Ken plans to keep the doors open while they search for a buyer. He said the new owner could carry on Gene’s Restaurant but knows that may not be possible. “That would be the ideal, but even the people who are looking so far, they have their own ideas, so I’m sure the person who takes over this… they’re going to have their own take on how to run it.” Tradition is important to Ken, who also put his stamp on the community as the founder of the Stratford Dragon Boat Festival. “Our menu, the old school menu, we have 135 items on our menu and any new restaurant now it’s probably 30 items at most, so it’s a lot easier,” he said. “We’re more labour intensive.” Gene’s has also kept a similar design and décor to the original restaurant. Ken said that was a deliberate choice on his part. “I thought if we got rid of the lamps and we got rid of the shell pictures, which is the definitely the old school Chinese decorating style, then we’d be just like any other restaurant, so that kept our uniqueness.” No official closing date has been set, but since announcing his plan to retire, Ken said he’s been inundated with messages from customers. “I’m just grateful to the people of Stratford who embraced us through the years and supported us,” he told CTV News. “Fifty-six years is a long journey. We definitely took the long and slow route of things and we’re ecstatic to be still here.”
