Collector Gallery
Tiki Mug Design
Joyce Chen Hotei Mug
in 2 collections
This brown hiball was manufactured for Joyce Chen Restaurants in Cambridge, MA. The mug features Hotei (fat/happy Buddha with raised arms) on the front in relief. The back is marked "Joyce Chen" in raised letters. The back also features a Lotus Flower Trademark in relief and an ® next to it. The mug was used at Joyce Chen Restaurants. Chen opened her first restaurant in 1958. It was located at Central Square on Mass. Ave. in Cambridge. It was halfway between Harvard and MIT. It was a tiny take-out place and in no time people lined up to get Chinese food of a kind that few Americans had ever tasted. A few years later she opened the next restaurant in north Cambridge and more would follow. In 1962, she published The Joyce Chen Cookbook. In 1968, she starred in her own cooking show. She is credited with popularizing the Mandarin style of Chinese cooking in the United States. Chen died of Alzheimers disease in 1994. Her namesake restaurant closed in 1998.