Coming to America – Queens Blvd Location
I awaited the grand opening of McDowells, in vain.
3/14/20213 min read
With the sequel just launched, this is a good time to call out the great use of a real city location in the original movie!
In 1988, I lived not far and saw a new fast food place being built, I thought to myself I would try it out. Then I saw the arches and the “McDowell’s” sign, and I thought, oh boy, are they ever going to get sued. The place never opened, and then the movie came out and I understood.
It’s not hard to locate this place from the movie – they announce it during an early scene at the church – the address (85-07 Queens Boulevard) is read out for the parishioners to attend, to the embarassment of Lisa McDowell.
As interesting as eating at McDowell’s might have been, there were two superior choices immediately nearby.
In the picture above, you can clearly see Hoi Kong Harbor on the next block. This was an early Hong Kong style restaurant with the fish tanks as you walk in, and two gold-painted lions in front.
This was early days for Chinese immigration to Elmhurst, and this place was the real thing. It lasted through a 20 year lease. At some point they had become Harbor City Seafood, and when the lease came due, some or all of the people running it decamped a few blocks away to Broadway, and voila: “Broadway Seafood”. They are still going strong with pretty good dim sum and HK style food. <Edit May 2026 - Broadway Seafood is now gone, replaced with a Szechuan/Tibetan fusion place.>
Another place opened up nearby some years after Hoi Kong Harbor, Ping’s Seafood. They got near immediate acclaim from the NY Times, and were perpetually packed for dim sum lunch. Pretty darn good. In the movie, when the corporate legal investigator is taking pictures of McDowell’s, you can see Ping’s behind him, across Queens Boulevard, with the yellow sign and red-and-white striped awning. Also note the Elk’s Club looming over Ping’s. I think it has been turned into condos.
The best they could do with Samuel Jackson is to be a crack addled, shotgun toting robber who is subdued by Eddie Murphy and Aresenio Hall. I mean, suspension of disbelief and all, but really? Good view of Queens Boulevard behind him with the intersection of Broadway on the left.
Behind Lisa McDowell, you can see a branch of the European-American Bank. It never had much of a presence, and got bought by Citibank.
After McDowell’s vanished, and Hoi Kong moved, Ping’s stayed for quite some years but is now closed. Condos have sprouted up where both Hoi Kong and McDowell’s were. For many years, the Harbor City sign stayed up as a memory of great lobsters of the past.
