The New Omineca Café, now the Dragon Palace Restaurant, is one of Burns Lake’s oldest surviving eateries. The business can trace its roots to two of the town’s earliest residents, James Wayne “Jim” Locke and Louis Grindlay“Gin” Saul. Jim and Gin bought a small café located next door to the Burns Lake Cash and Carry store (which later became Burns Lake Cash & Delivery). On July 1, 1946, however, the building that housed their establishment was sold and moved to another location, leaving the fledgling partnership without premises from which to operate. Jim and Gin solved the problem by building a new establishment. They completed the preparatory work by hand with picks and shovels, transporting the excavated soil across Highway 16 by wheelbarrow before dumping it into what is now the downtown parking lot. Lumber for the new structure came from the Saul property at Decker Lake. Work on the building progressed rapidly, and on November 25, 1946, the New Omineca Café, which later boasted Burns Lake’s first neon sign, opened for business.