Here is the late Chili Bill Eichinger’s recollection of Yee Jun, which pretty much matches mine. It actually never really closed, just took on new owners and a new name, Kam Lok.
Before its closure, the Yee Jun Restaurant on Washington St. was the oldest existing Chinese place in SF. In its prime it was a hippie haven. A giant bowl of fried rice was 75 cents, and often the one meal of the day for some folks. In addition it had the major funk - marble table tops, cool wooden booths that looked like they could, at any given moment, revolve into the wall and be replaced by an empty duplicate, the previous occupants waking up far out at sea. The waiters all looked to be ninety years old and said little other than ‘you ready order?’ There was this one geezer who called everyone “John”. I would always say my name wasn’t John, to which he would reply, ‘OK John, what you want?’ Later on, in a book on the history of the Chinese in California, I discovered that Caucasians used ‘John’ as a pejorative term for all Chinese men. This waiter was just getting his kicks. The owners seemed to get a kick out of their clientele as well, and paid homage by decorating the beautiful wrought iron cashier’s cage with little signs that said ‘RIGHT ON’ and ‘FAR OUT’ and of course ‘GROOVY!’
