Sam Wo restaurant in Chinatown is set to reopen yet again this Friday, under the new ownership of two veteran Bay Area restaurateurs, after the 116-year-old favorite seemingly closed for good in January.

Few Chinatown restaurants captured San Francisco’s heart and imagination like the famed Sam Wo, mostly because of its cheap prices, very late-night hours, and the legacy of the “world’s rudest waiter” Edsel Ford Fung. Many will also remember a 2007 Conan O'Brien bit about Sam Wo (seen below). But the restaurant served its last jook this past January, closing after 115 years, as chef and former owner Mister David Ho retired after more than 40 years, and the place was unable to find a new owner.

But a few Redditors noticed something going on in the Sam Wo location at 713 Clay Street in recent weeks. And today, NBC Bay Area confirms that Sam Wo is indeed reopening this Friday, September 3, with pretty much the exact same menu it had before.

Sam Wo Restaurant set to Re-Open!
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The Chronicle reports that the new Sam Wong ownership group is Norris Song, (Millbrae’s The Kitchen and Zhen) and his cousin Ming Duong (SF’s Begoni Bistro and Osmanthus Dim Sum Lounge). Both grew up eating Sam Wo, and brought the chef Ho temporarily out of retirement to train the new employees.

"He's training our staff. I'm so happy. I even took a couple pictures with him," Song told NBC Bay Area. "He's the chef I grew up with."

And they’re going to try to return to late-night hours, or at least, somewhat late-night hours. "What we want to do is send out the message that Chinatown is going to be open again, after 9 o'clock, right? We're going to go ahead and invest the time and try to be open on the weekends at least to 11 or 12," longtime primary investor David Lee said to NBC Bay Area. "We're going to invest the money into the community by opening late again."

This is not the first time Sam Wo was resurrected. The restuarant closed its old Washington Street location in 2012 because the place was nowhere near up to code, though reopened at the current Clay Street location in 2015.  

And by the way, there is no human being named Sam Wo. It’s a Chinese language term meaning “three harmony.”

Related: This Week In Food: A Fond Farewell to Sam Wo [SFist

Image: Erick T via Yelp