28 years of Leeann Chin

1980: Leeann Chin, a Chinese immigrant and seamstress who cooked for her customers, opens an 80-seat, buffet-style restaurant in Minnetonka, specializing in Szechwan and Cantonese cuisine.

1985: General Mills buys the Leeann Chin name and three restaurants, which were ringing up sales of $5 million. General Mills plans a nationwide expansion, but efforts in Chicago fall flat.

1988: Leeann Chin buys back the company from General Mills with a $2 million investment from Capital Dimensions Venture Fund in Bloomington and a $4 million loan from Norwest Bank.

1991: Opens takeout counters at all nine Byerly's grocery stores.

1994: Expands into Seattle supermarket as Asia Grille by Leeann Chin. That became the new name of a sit-down restaurant concept that was supposed to be its national growth vehicle.

1995: Three venture capital firms invest $11 million for a 50 percent stake in the company, leaving Chin with 40 percent, while various parties own 10 percent.

1996: The third Asia Grille opens in Eden Prairie, without Chin's name. Later that year, Chin, 63, leaves the chain after clashes with then-CEO Ron Fuller.

1997: Fuller resigns and Chin returns for a two-year contract as chairwoman and sells her stake in the company.

1998: Asia Grille concept is dropped, and an attempt to take the company public is abandoned.

1999: Founder Chin retires.

2002: Chin's Asia Fresh debuts in Wisconsin, an attempt to move the chain beyond its deli-style, lunch-counter roots.

2004: Asia Fresh comes to Minnetonka, an 80-seat, 3,500-square-foot restaurant that cost more than $650,000 to build. The company plans to open 75 Asia Fresh stores in five years, an expansion that never materializes.

2004: Contract with Lunds and Byerly's grocery stores expires, and a new deal is inked with Rainbow Foods.

2005: High-profile closings of the restaurant in the International Centre atrium in downtown Minneapolis, where it had been since the mid-1980s, and at the Union Depot in downtown St. Paul.

2007: Lorne Goldberg, Los Angeles-based owner of Mandarin Express, pays an undisclosed sum for 36 restaurants (including eight Asia Fresh) and 10 Rainbow Foods locations.

Sources: Star Tribune archives, Corporate Report Minnesota, City Business