Longtime LV restaurant manager dies

Henry Joseph "Hank' Schainck, a chef and restaurant manager who in the 1940s and '50s made the Golden Nugget hotel-casino's restaurant one of the top eateries in town, has died. He was 87.

Schainck, who also managed restaurants in the old Silver Slipper on the Strip and hotels in Tokyo, Hong Kong, America Samoa and Hawaii, died July 16 of heart failure at his home in LaPine, Ore., where he had lived for the past 19 years, his family and an Oregon mortuary confirmed Tuesday.

Services were private and handled by Niswonger and Reynolds funeral home in Bend, Ore. Interment was at Valley Memorial Park in Hillsboro, Ore.

"In the 1950s, the Golden Nugget was one of the most exciting places to dine in town," said longtime Sun food columnist Muriel Stevens, who came to Las Vegas in 1954. "On any given day you could go there and find all of the city's movers and shakers having lunch or dinner."

After his two-decade stint in Las Vegas, Schainck ran the Sanno Hotel in Tokyo for 11 years and later managed the Merlin Hotel in Hong Kong and the American Hotel in Samoa as well as the Kuilimia and Ala Moana hotels in Hawaii, his family said.

"He was a prolific food writer," said Henry Wyman, Schainck's son, who lives in Davis, Calif. "He authored training manuals for military club operators, home cookbooks and newspaper cooking columns."

Born in 1911 in Ogden, Utah, Schainck served as a captain in the Army during World War II. Wyman said his father served on the personal staffs of Gens. Douglas MacArthur and Matthew Ridgeway in Japan.

After the war, Schainck settled in Las Vegas and became a member of the Food Service Executives Association and the International Society of Food Consultants.

After managing the Asian and Polynesian properties, he retired to LaPine in 1979. There he took a part-time job as a dinner chef and started his extensive writings. He later taught cooking and baking classes at Central Oregon Community College, Wyman said.

In addition to his son, Schainck is survived by his wife, Yoko Schainck of LaPine; five daughters, Geraldine Stacey of Ogden, Virginia Read of Kaysville, Utah, Mickey Netzler of Lawton, Okla., Yvonne Keller of Avondale, Ariz., and Daisy Schainck of LaPine; two sisters, Nellie Springer of Beaverton, Ore., and Mary Spiering of Brookings, Ore.; and several grandchildren, great grandchildren, nieces and nephews.

Schainck was preceded in death by a son, Charles, and a daughter, Susan.

DONATIONS: In Schainck's memory to local hospice organizations.

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