Howard F. Loo, whose career as a restaurant manager began at the storied Kin Wa Low, opened by his father on Cherry Street more than a century ago, died Tuesday in Hospice of Northwest Ohio, Perrysburg Township. He was 88.

Mr. Loo of South Toledo had renal failure, his son Cal said.

Kin Wa Low served its last Cantonese meal and offered its last floor show in 1958, felled ultimately by a change in federal tax law. Mr. Loo continued in the restaurant business, affiliated with such popular venues as the Red Parrot, the Crown Room, and his own Parkside Club and H’Loo’s Steakpit.

He retired in the mid-1980s.

“He was a hard worker and put in a lot of time and energy into running things and was very disciplined about running places,” his son said.

Mr. Loo believed in a particular approach to table service, kitchen operation, and finances, his son said, and worked the floor, visiting with customers, telling stories “as long as people wanted him there.

“He loved people and was an entertainer by nature,” his son said.

He was born June 8, 1928, to Lee Shee and Ha Sun Loo, immigrants from the province in southern China then called “Canton” by westerners. His father had opened a restaurant in the 600 block of Cherry in 1913, and the family lived on North Ontario Street.

Mr. Loo attended St. Thomas Military Academy in Minnesota, where he was a judo instructor and a military trainer. He’d begun to study engineering at the affiliated college when his father had a stroke. He returned home to help his sisters run Kin Wa Low, by then adjoining storefronts stitched together to form dining rooms that could seat 200. There was a bandstand and a dance floor that doubled as a stage when raised by hydraulic lift.

Kin Wa Low drew big names to Toledo — singers Bobby Darin, who appeared as an unknown, a semi-known, and a star; Patti Page, and Steve Lawrence. Acrobats and dance acts performed. Ella Fitzgerald drew the biggest crowds in club history, Mr. Loo told The Blade in 2013. The biggest week for the club featured Helen O’Connell, who grew up in Toledo and came to fame as a big band singer, Blade staff writer Seymour Rothman reported in 1965, after the club was torn down. Week in and week out, it was the comics that kept people coming back, Mr. Rothman wrote.

Even decades later, Kin Wa Low “meant the world to him,” his son said. “He was very proud of his father and the restaurant. He was happy running the place and became a significant visible figure in the Toledo area as the man running the Kin Wa Low.

“He got to know so many people,” his son said, “everywhere we’d go, people would stop and talk to him.”

Connie Goodrich, a goddaughter whose mother was a waitress there, recalled the entertainment — and the Sunday afternoons when the club opened to teenagers, serving them pop and chips, opening the floor to dancing.

“I loved the place,” said Mrs. Goodrich, 75, whose sister, Myrna, married Mr. Loo. “He’s always been in our family and always taken good care of us.”

Mr. Loo as a young man played softball and football in local leagues. He organized volleyball challenges at the family’s cottage on Sandusky Bay and played the sport into his early 80s.

“He taught so many people to swim and water ski,” Mrs. Goodrich said.

Surviving are his wife, the former Myrna Thompson, whom he married July 28, 1962; sons, Harold and Callan Loo; daughters, Lisa Horman and Carla Huston, and four grandchildren.

A celebration of life and open house will be from 1-4 p.m. today in the faculty club at the Radisson Hotel at the University of Toledo, on the campus of the former Medical College of Ohio.

The family suggests tributes to St. Patrick of Heatherdowns Church, where he was a member, or Hospice of Northwest Ohio.

Contact Mark Zaborney at: mzaborney@theblade.com or 419-724-6182.

First Published January 7, 2017, 5:00 a.m.