lit a candle 1d agoMy grandfather used to drive us out Route 40 to Ding Ho every time we visited Columbus, same booth, same order of wor sue gai. I was at my mom's kitchen table when she texted me it was Mr. Yee who'd died, and it knocked the wind out of me a little, that place was older than both my parents. Ninety one years, decades behind that counter.
Their story
Wai "Bill" Jun Yee was the longtime second-generation owner and operator of Ding Ho Restaurant, a Cantonese family restaurant on the west side of Columbus, Ohio, widely regarded as the city's oldest Chinese restaurant and one of the oldest in the United States still run by the same family. He…
Wai "Bill" Jun Yee was the longtime second-generation owner and operator of Ding Ho Restaurant, a Cantonese family restaurant on the west side of Columbus, Ohio, widely regarded as the city's oldest Chinese restaurant and one of the oldest in the United States still run by the same family. He died on September 29, 2026, at Doctor's Hospital West in Columbus, at the age of 91. The cause of death was not publicly disclosed.
Born on April 5, 1935, Yee immigrated in the mid-1960s, first to Canada and then to the United States. He arrived with little material means but with a willingness to work hard and provide for his family. That path became the central story of his life: building a home, raising children, and carrying forward the restaurant his father had founded.
Ding Ho opened in 1956 under Clifford Yee and a business partner, in a converted gas station on what was then Old U.S. Route 40 on Columbus's far west side, when the area was still largely rural. Bill grew up in the business and eventually took it over, running it for decades before day-to-day operations passed to a third generation of the family, who moved the restaurant to its present location on Phillipi Road in 2008. Under the Yees' stewardship, Ding Ho became a fixture of Columbus food culture, known for homestyle Cantonese and American Chinese dishes and especially for its version of wor sue gai, a crispy stuffed chicken dish that local tradition has long linked to Ding Ho and another Columbus institution, Wing's.
Food writers and folklorists studying Midwestern Chinese American restaurant history have treated Ding Ho as a rich example of how Chinese restaurants adapted to local tastes in Ohio across the twentieth century. In 2024 the restaurant drew a new wave of attention after a national food blogger's social media post went viral, bringing crowds large enough that the family adjusted its hours.
Although the restaurant kept him busy, Yee made time for family on Sundays. He also enjoyed a day at the horse track, mahjong with friends, and a cup of coffee. He was preceded in death by his parents, Clifford Yee and Kim York Lee Yee. He is survived by his children Nancy (Chris), Stephen (Tiffany), Lucy, Merry, George, and Alice (Tom), along with many grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and a large extended family.
Friends may call at Jerry Spears Funeral Home on West Broad Street in Columbus on October 7, 2026, with a funeral service on October 8 and interment at Eastlawn Cemetery. Ding Ho remains open in the hands of the family his father founded it with nearly seventy years ago, the clearest marker of what he built and protected.
Biography adapted from Jerry Spears Funeral Home obituary via Legacy.com; WSYX / myfox28columbus; Columbus food-history reporting cited on this page.
Photos
1Wai "Bill" Jun Yee, longtime owner of Ding Ho Restaurant in Columbus, Ohio
by People Forever
that stretch of old 40 isn't even recognizable now but Ding Ho always was