Introduction
Antonio Chi Su was a Chinese-Mexican businessman and restaurant owner who lived his life away from the spotlight, and who is remembered today for two things: the Chinese restaurant he built on Avenida Bucareli in Mexico City, and his marriage to Lyn May, one of the most famous vedettes in Mexican entertainment history. He was a quiet entrepreneur, a husband, and a bridge between two cultures, and his story is worth telling precisely because it belongs to the kind of person history usually overlooks.
He married Lyn May in 1988, at the height of her fame as a dancer and actress in Mexico's ficheras cinema, and the two of them ran their restaurant together for twenty years. In 2004 he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, and after a four-year illness he died in 2008. His death became a public story in a way his life never had, because his widow's grief took a form that shocked Mexico. Lyn May later confirmed that, overwhelmed by loss, she had exhumed her husband's body and slept beside his remains.
In 2026, nearly two decades after his death, Antonio Chi Su is still searched, still written about, and still misunderstood. Some websites invent a business empire for him, others confuse him with a Singapore technology entrepreneur of the same name, and others give him a birth year that no source can support. This article separates what is verified from what is not, and tells the story of the man himself: his roots in Mexico's Chinese community, his restaurant, his marriage, his illness, and the legacy he left behind.
Quick Facts
| Full Name | Antonio Chi Su |
|---|---|
| Stage Name/Nickname | Antonio Chi Su |
| Date of Birth | Not publicly known |
| Age | Not publicly known (approximately 59 at death, per widely repeated but unverified estimates) |
| Place of Birth | Mexico City, Mexico (widely reported; exact details not publicly known) |
| Profession | Businessman, Restaurateur |
| Height | Not publicly known |
| Net Worth (Estimated 2026) | Not publicly known |
| Relationship Status | Married to Lyn May from 1988 until his death in 2008 |
| Notable Work/Roles | Owner of a Chinese restaurant on Avenida Bucareli, Mexico City |
| Official Social Handles | None; he died in 2008, before social media |
Early Life, Background and Breakthrough
Antonio Chi Su was born in Mexico City, the son of Chinese immigrants, and he grew up inside one of Mexico's oldest and least celebrated communities. Chinese families began arriving in Mexico in large numbers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, working first on railways and in agriculture and later building businesses in the cities. They faced discrimination, but they built a lasting place in Mexican life, above all through food, trade and family businesses. Antonio Chi Su grew up in that world, speaking Spanish, living with Chinese customs at home and Mexican customs outside it, and learning from an early age how to move between two cultures.
No reliable source gives his date of birth, and this article does not invent one. Some biography sites say he was born in the early 1950s and was about 59 years old when he died in 2008. Others say he was in his early sixties at his death, which would put his birth in the mid-1940s. Still others give an age of 68. None of these figures comes from a public record, a family statement or an official document. His birth year is not publicly known, and the honest thing is to say so rather than to pick the most repeated guess and present it as fact.
What is known is the shape of his early adult life. He grew up in Mexico City, in a family that valued work, loyalty and community, and he moved into business as a young man. The Mexico City of the 1970s and 1980s was a city of neighbourhood restaurants and family firms, and it was in that world that Antonio Chi Su found his place. He worked in the restaurant trade, learned the business from the inside, and by the 1980s he was ready to open a place of his own.
Career Evolution and Major Milestones
Antonio Chi Su's career was his restaurant, and the restaurant was the centre of his working life for more than twenty years. He established a Chinese restaurant on Avenida Bucareli in Mexico City, and he ran it as a family business, serving authentic Chinese dishes to local people and to visitors. The restaurant became known in the neighbourhood, and it gave him a standing in the local Chinese-Mexican community. He was not a celebrity chef, and he did not seek publicity for his cooking. He was a restaurateur in the traditional sense: a man who owned a place, knew his customers, looked after his staff, and took pride in the work.
His marriage changed the restaurant's story. May married businessman Antonio Chi Su in 1988, and the couple opened the Chinese restaurant on Avenida Bucareli together. Lyn May, born Lilia Guadalupe Mendiola Mayares on 12 December 1952 in Acapulco, was at the time one of the most popular vedettes in Mexico, a star of the ficheras films of the 1970s and 1980s. Her marriage to a quiet businessman surprised many, but the restaurant became their shared project.
The years that followed were the best of his life. The restaurant traded well, the marriage lasted, and Antonio Chi Su lived as a respected figure in his community, known to his neighbours and his customers rather than to the public at large. He did not give interviews or try to trade on his wife's fame. His work was the restaurant, and his life was the marriage, and for twenty years that was enough.
The final chapter of his career was shaped by illness. In 2004 he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, and for the next four years he continued to work, to support his staff and to spend time with his family while undergoing treatment. In January 2008 he died, after a four-year battle with the disease. He was, by the most widely repeated estimate, about 59 years old, although that figure is not verified. His death marked the end of the restaurant as a partnership, and Lyn May inherited the business.
Personal Life, Lifestyle and Public Image
Antonio Chi Su's personal life was, above all, his marriage. He married Lyn May in 1988, and the marriage lasted until his death in 2008, twenty years later. Lyn May has described him as the love of her life. Before him, she had been married to an American sailor, a marriage that ended after five years and two daughters, and she had a ten-year relationship with the film producer Guillermo Calderón Stell. Her marriage to Antonio Chi Su was different from both: a long, stable partnership built around a shared business and a shared home.
The couple's life together was quiet by the standards of Lyn May's career. She was a performer whose work was loud, glamorous and public, and he was a businessman whose work was steady, private and local. The contrast worked: she gave him a connection to the world of entertainment and fame, and he gave her a home, a business and a steady partner. They had no children together, as far as any public source records, and Lyn May's two daughters were from her first marriage.
His public image, such as it was, was that of a private man. He was not photographed for magazines, he was not interviewed about his wife, and he did not seek attention. The Chinese-Mexican community knew him as a businessman and a neighbour. The wider public knew him, if at all, as Lyn May's husband, a description that tells the truth about his fame while saying nothing about his life.
After his death, his widow's grief became a story in its own right. Lyn May confirmed in a television interview that, unable to let him go, she had exhumed his body and brought his remains home, and that she had slept beside them. She said she had lived with him for 25 years and did not want to let him go. The confession shocked many, but it also showed the depth of the bond between them. Later in 2008, Lyn May married Guillermo Calderón Stell, the film producer with whom she had previously had a long relationship. He died in 2018, leaving her widowed for a second time.
Estimated Net Worth and Financial Success in 2026
There is no verified figure for Antonio Chi Su's net worth, and this article does not invent one. Some biography sites repeat a figure of around 1.5 million dollars, said to come from the restaurant business and from real estate, but no source is given for the number and no public record supports it. It should be treated as an unverified online estimate, not as a fact.
What is known is that he owned a restaurant on a busy street in central Mexico City and ran it successfully for more than twenty years, and that his wife inherited the business when he died. A restaurant of that kind, run for that long, is a substantial achievement, and it would have provided a comfortable living. Whether it made him a millionaire is not something any reliable source can say.
The honest summary is that Antonio Chi Su was a successful small businessman whose wealth should be measured in the business he built and the life he lived, not in a number copied from one biography site to another.
Recent News and Future Projects
Antonio Chi Su died in 2008, so there is no recent news about him and there will be no future projects. What continues is the interest in his story, and the way his name keeps appearing in articles about Lyn May, about Mexico's Chinese community, and about the aftermath of his death. In 2026, nearly eighteen years after he died, his name is still searched, and the questions people ask are still the same: who was he, how did he meet Lyn May, what happened to the restaurant, and how did he die.
The restaurant on Avenida Bucareli is part of that story. The neighbourhood remains a centre of commerce and culture. Whether his restaurant still trades under the same name is not a matter of public record, and this article does not claim that it does.
His legacy is not a business empire or a fortune. It is a marriage that lasted twenty years, a restaurant that served a neighbourhood for two decades, and a story of two cultures meeting in one life.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who was Antonio Chi Su?
Antonio Chi Su was a Chinese-Mexican businessman and restaurant owner in Mexico City, best known as the husband of the Mexican vedette and actress Lyn May, whom he married in 1988. He died of prostate cancer in 2008.
How did Antonio Chi Su die?
He was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2004 and died in January 2008 after a four-year battle with the illness.
What was Antonio Chi Su's restaurant?
He owned a Chinese restaurant on Avenida Bucareli in Mexico City, which he ran with his wife Lyn May. She inherited the restaurant after his death.
How old was Antonio Chi Su when he died?
His exact age is not publicly known, because his date of birth was never published. The most widely repeated estimate is about 59, but other sites give different figures, so no age can be stated as fact.
Final Verdict
Antonio Chi Su lived a quiet life and died a quiet death, and it is the quietness that makes his story worth telling. He was born in Mexico City to Chinese immigrant parents, he built a restaurant on Avenida Bucareli, he married one of the most famous women in Mexico, and he faced four years of cancer with the same steadiness he had brought to his work. He left no fortune that can be counted and no public record of his birth, and yet his name is still searched in 2026, because his marriage to Lyn May made him part of a story that Mexico has never forgotten.
The gaps in his story should stay gaps. His birth year, his age at death and his net worth are not publicly known, and no honest article should fill them with guesses. What is known is enough: a businessman, a husband, and a bridge between China and Mexico.