Souvenir thermometer came with this photo of Irene Luke for Mee Hong Restaurant in 1943.

It may be the tiniest exhibit you’ll ever see, but the Culinary Arts Museum’s “Chow Mein, Chicken Wings, and Cheeseburgers” show is sure to evoke a big wave of memories and nostalgia for the patrons of three Chinese restaurants that once reigned in Providence.

The exhibit tells us the Chin family opened Mee Hong Restaurant next to the Westminster Arcade in 1938. Three years later, the Tow family established Ming Garden on what is now Kennedy Plaza. In 1951, Tin Cheug Luke and son Henry opened Luke’s Restaurant on Eddy Street.

Rhode Island’s love affair with Asian food is featured through remembrances of these three restaurants. They thrived after World War II and slowly waned until they closed in the late ’70s to 1986 when Szechuan dishes replaced the Cantonese food they featured.

But they were an important part of the fabric of the community and represented many happy memories of dining out with family or friends. They also offered many the first taste of exotic cuisine.

The exhibit resurrects some artifacts that will make visitors nostalgic. A 1938 table and china set-up from Mee Hong Restaurant features the green table with the “M” and “H” letters drawn in the center and the gold leaves in each corner. The plates are adorned with a cheerful hummingbird motif. The Chin family felt the design contributed to a peaceful atmosphere in the restaurant. In addition to the plates, there is a teapot and the old fashioned sugar bowl, with the two-sided lid.

From 1961 there are the rattan chairs with the high, rounded backs and the matching side table from Luke’s Luau Hut. On the table are glasses, one a scantily dressed hulu girl and one that resembles an idol. They were widely used in a Pacific island theme that was so popular in Cantonese restaurants in the ’50s and ’60s.

In fact, the exhibit tells us that in the 1950s, the Tow family hired artist Morris Nathanson to design the Polynesian Room for Ming Garden. That was well before he founded his Pawtucket-based Morris Nathanson Design and created the blueprint for restaurants from Providence to New York City.

Other items in the exhibit speak to the business end of the restaurants. The typewriter on display doesn’t look very different from any Underwood typewriter of its day. But its importance comes from the fact it was used by Lily Tow to type the ideas that would promote her family’s Ming Garden restaurant. Four newspaper advertisements are a snapshot of a different time in America.

Mrs. Tow created different ads to appeal to different groups, all with the same goal to attract diners to the Ming Garden. There was a Happy New Year ad for Jewish diners and the Christmas Greetings for Christians. The aim was to make each group feel personally invited to dine at the restaurant. She appealed to college football fans in an ad with flags representing Brown, Providence College, URI and Bryant College. She appealed to families by promising they had high chairs. A Thanksgiving ad offered a full dinner for $2.25 in 1958 in the Polynesian Room.

Writings suggest the importance each family member had in running these restaurants. Cooking was the domain of men. The women helped by doing kitchen prep work such as slicing all the vegetables. But they were clearly business-minded, too. A photo of Anna Luke in 1955 shows her frustrated after arguing with kitchen workers over pay when her husband Henry didn’t.

Old menus, including from Luke’s and Mee Hong, are startling, not just for the low prices but for how much all-American food was on the menu. Everyone in a family wasn’t so quick to try new things.

The exhibition is the work of guest curators Heather Lee and Amy Johnson, graduate students in Brown University’s John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage. It’s part of a collaboration between J&W and Brown that included a weekend conference earlier this spring and one last year that explored local Chinese perspectives on food and memory.

The exhibit is only on display through June 30.

The Culinary Arts Museum at Johnson & Wales University, 315 Harborside Blvd., Providence, (401) 598-2805, culinary.org, is open Tuesday to Sunday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.