A bastion for delicious Chinese food for 50+ years, Staten Island restaurant still serves drinks in a pineapple (2024)

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — This restaurant baby of the 1970s doesn’t look a day over fabulous. That’s Jade Island on Staten Island, at 52, still flaming its pu-pu platters and staying true to a tiki-on-totem theme.

We customers might not be getting any younger. Those historic booths are indeed smaller as we’ve all gotten bigger. Yet while the food is always fresh and the carpet is new, Jade Island’s brand of Polynesian and Hunan fare is pleasantly stuck in time — at least by this 70s baby’s standards.

And Johnny Yipp is totally cool with that stubborn bent on tradition.

Yip is Jade Island’s king of the Kanaloa.

Humble and hands on, Yip calls himself simply “manager” — the fourth such one in Jade Island’s history — who took over the place almost 30 years to the day. He’s the master of birthday ceremonies, the seater of patrons, the maker of Mai Tais and pro-handler of Headhunters served in anatomically correct ceramic ware.

Tropical drinks are always in style at Jade Island.

“No one else still serves drinks in pineapples. Maybe they’re still doing that in San Francisco — but we’re always doing it here,” said Yip. Even with a boozy co*cktail inside despite the cost of fruit these days, it’s an Island essential at roughly $15 a hit.

When pressed, Yip mentions milestones. He came to the U.S. on January 13, 1971 at 19 years old. Work then took him to his dad’s restaurant, formerly of Atlantic City.

Back in New York City, Yip the younger eventually joined Jade’s rank-and-file in 1986. Then he became “the boss” in 1994.

GREATEST OF JADED PALATES

There are many big moments in Jade Island history. Standouts include the time Anthony Bourdain walked into this strip mall spot. The late writer and celebrity chef sojourned to New Springville to film with a most famous Staten Islander — rocker David Johansen of the trailblazing punk band, the New York Dolls.

Yip gestured to the tables across from where Bourdain and Johansen sipped their drinks and roasted bacon-wrapped chicken over a sterno’s flame. Although at the time, it was Johansen who seemed to truly captivate Bourdain.

“They sat right over here,” Yip said directing the way to a tiki hut with a waterside perch on a Polynesian Island. About 15 people sat at a few tables across the aisle, a gaggle of workers and tagalongs of the show “No Reservations.”

Yip said people still request this one booth made popular by the show.

An even bigger moment for Yip, if there could be one, was at Jade Island’s 40th anniversary.

In 2012 the Staten Island Advance reported on their potentially losing their lease. It would have been a similar fate to be suffered in the same shopping plaza as a neighbor, Golden’s Deli which shut down in that same year.

Hundreds of phone calls later to landlord Kimco Realty, the tide turned for Jade Island. The real estate gods listened to the tiki people and were not sacrificed for the sake of perceived progress. In the meantime, though, the landlord reps were overwhelmed by fans’ reactions — Yip giggles at the thought — Jade Island earned a new lease with yet another chapter in a food life.

The restaurant said in its Facebook post at the time: “We want to thank everyone and all the families that have supported us throughout the years on Staten Island...Thank you all and we would not be here without you!”

Yip sticks with that sentiment after all these years. His restaurant is at an interesting stage right now. It’s beyond the midlife crisis but way far from retirement.

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