House of Louie, the 30-year-old Chinese restaurant and the last remnant of a bustling dim sum scene in Portland's Chinatown, has closed its doors for good.

"We were popular once, 20 years ago," says House of Louie co-owner James Leong, citing the end of his lease and downtown Portland's homeless population among the reasons he decided to close the restaurant. "It's time."

At lunchtime Tuesday, crews were hauling away furniture and kitchen wares from the restaurant as Leong looked on in a beige hooded coat. A warren of back rooms including a lounge and banquet area stood empty save for a few stools, some boxes and a lone foosball table. Passersby wondered out loud if the front entrance had been bombed -- Leong said a homeless couple sleeping in the alcove had started a fire on a recent cold evening, torching the walls and shattering the restaurant's large round windows.

According to Leong, House of Louie was once at the center of a robust Chinatown, with a dozen Chinese restaurants including at least three dim sum restaurants within a block or two of Northwest Third Avenue and Davis Street. Today, many of the city's dim sum restaurants are found around Southeast 82nd Avenue.

"...and in Beaverton, and Tigard," Leong says. "Anywhere but downtown. The rent is too high."

House of Louie wasn't the only Chinese restaurant to turn out the lights this weekend. Mandarin Cove, the lunchtime stalwart at 111 S.W. Columbia St., closed for good on January 1. And the news comes in the wake of another longtime Portland restaurant closure: The Original Taco House.

But as always, new blood is on the way. As first reported by The Oregonian/OregonLive, Yong Kang Street, a dim sum and noodle restaurant, is among the first tenants coming to the redesigned food court at Pioneer Place Mall.

-- Michael Russell