Jan Whitaker's fantastic blog, Restaurant-ing through history, has looked into the history of the many Ruby Foo restaurants and pondered how much fact and fiction existed about the popular perceptions of Ruby Foo, the person. 



     

Whitaker commented, "After extensive research I’ve begun to wonder if the public persona of Ruby Foo was largely fictitious. She is often seen as a rare example of a Chinese woman who defied convention by creating a chain of stylish, nightclub-style Chinese restaurants that appealed to non-Chinese customers."


"During the 1930s, with the end of Prohibition, Ruby Foo’s Den grew into a popular nightclub and expanded into New York and Miami, each with two locations, plus another at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. But it isn’t at all clear to what degree Ruby owned and operated the 11 Ruby Foo’s that existed at one time or another (not only in Boston, New York, and Miami, but also in Providence, Philadelphia, Montreal, and London)."