When the Ho family first took over the Emperor Court Chinese Restaurant, Home and Away had just hit the airwaves, Bob Hawke was still prime minister and the ACT Legislative Assembly was still one year away from meeting for the first time.
The restaurant at the Yarralumla shops had already been open under different owners for a few years by 1988, but when the Ho family - who had just emigrated from China - took over they saw it as an exciting opportunity.
An opportunity that has lasted more than 35 years, but come Sunday June 23, what has become one of the city's oldest Chinese restaurants is closing its doors for the last time. It's time for Stanley and Agnes Ho to enjoy their much-earned retirement.
"This was an opportunity for us. And there was pride in owning [the] restaurant," daughter Anita Ho says.
"Back then there weren't as many options in what we could do, but being in restaurants and food was a way for us to progress after migrating to Australia. This was the next step for us. There was a kind of security and stability that came with it.
"And it was always a big family business. Originally we had aunties and uncles working here as well. At some point though - I'd say 20 years ago - the aunties and uncles left and it was just us. My parents still own it and my brother Leslie is the one running the day-to-day."
Anita and Leslie Ho grew up at Emperor Court. Those who visited in the late 1980s and early 1990s may even remember them playing between tables while customers enjoyed their sweet and sour pork and fried rice. That is until they got older and were either doing their homework in the corner of the restaurant or waiting tables.
It was in the early 1990s that they became aware of one regular customer. Tony Ayers, who was then the Secretary of the Department of Defence and "the public servant" of the time, was not only a regular but conducted a lot of his business inside the restaurant - a fact that was captured in a cover story in The Canberra Times' Saturday Magazine in 1993.
"A lot of his networking is done in his favourite Chinese restaurant, the Emperor Court in Yarralumla, which he calls 'the club'," the story read.
"There was the time, for instance, when he invited two warring secretaries to lunch, plonked a bottle of wine in front of them, said, 'Now, you two, work it out', and then left. They did."
Because of this article, the Ho children thought they had one of the world's most well-known celebrities eating in what might as well have been their home away from home.
"That story was my parents' first lesson in marketing," Anita Ho jokes.
"But he was a regular and a nice man, and knowing his background [in the public service] we were proud to have him enjoying our food and coming to our suburban Chinese restaurant. It was a really big wow factor for us."
For more than 35 years - 40, if you count the previous owners - the Emperor Court has played the near-vital role of the suburban Chinese restaurant in Yarralumla. Surely it's something every suburb needs?
But perhaps the idea of the suburban Chinese restaurant is on the brink of extinction.
"It would have been really hard to sell the business and find someone else to take over," Anita Ho says.
"There's not many people interested in buying a Chinese restaurant and Yarralumla can be a challenging area to sell to.
"But a lot of the Chinese restaurants have closed now. It's like the Chinese restaurants have faded away because there are just so many other cuisines now.
"But we've been really lucky to have the customers we have had for the past 35 years, who kept coming back. We really have appreciated them and we wouldn't have survived as long as we did without them."
