Sin: Chinese restaurants’ habit of hiring from within the family-not just Mom and Pop and kids but also a cousin of a cousin of a cousin from Fujian-allowed an existence outside of the rules, the laws of physics of market forces. New York has made mom-and-pop operations really difficult. Tang: If it’s not the Buildings Department, it’s the Health Department, or minimum wage. Wang: The backbone of the restaurant industry, of the city really-undocumented workers-has been removed or hurt. In Chinese: kǔlì, literally “bitter labor.” Jack Tchen, historian: They were coolies. A lot of people said, “I won’t be a chef, because I saw what being a chef did to my father.” Who is left to cook?Ĭhiang: It’s very hard to get good Chinese chefs in America. Laboring under illusions As China’s middle class grows, America’s well of replaceable Chinese immigrants has suddenly run dry. We divorced! Our family broke up! My wife wants to go back! Anything to communicate that it’s their fault and not the restaurant’s. They’re very aggressive in letting you know why they’re selling. Why go into debt coming to America and buying a restaurant? You should read the classifieds in Chinatown newspapers where they sell restaurants. Lee: You could always hand it off to the next wave of immigrants. Lee, author of The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food: The parents did what parents are supposed to do.Ĭheng: You wouldn’t want your child to go into it. The business venture was to send kids to college. Jason Wang, cofounder of Xi’an Famous Foods: There was no succession plan, because success was seen as not having to do it anymore. And I bet you a large portion of these places that are closing or in trouble are exactly that situation. Wilson Tang, second-generation owner of Nom Wah Tea Parlor, the oldest restaurant in New York’s Chinatown: I can’t imagine much worse than working 100 fucking hours a week for, like, $60,000 a year and just, when you do the math, realizing that you’re making way, way below minimum wage. And the saddest part is they never changed. It was all golden dragons and red lanterns. They didn’t care if their food was good or bad. That’s why they had two menus: one for who they wanted to be, one for who they had to be.Ĭecilia Chiang, James Beard Lifetime Achievement Award winner: They wanted green cards. Simone Tong, chef and owner of Little Tong (and soon Silver Apricot): It was survival. The forbidding city For generations, Chinese restaurants scraped by in hopes of getting ahead. This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity. With so many closures, the pressure is on for young entrepreneurial chefs to expand just to make up the shortfall.įortune spoke with many of them and other major voices in the community to make some sense of these unprecedented culinary, cultural, and economic shifts. They talk about, for example, the economics of ghost kitchens with Zuul or delivery options with Uber. Cecilia Chiang, the godmother of Chinese restaurants in America, has addressed the group, as has her son Philip (the P in P.F. But just as a culinary renaissance is flourishing in the Chinese restaurants of Los Angeles- “knockout” mapo tofu lasagna, y’all!-an economic and even spiritual revolution is seizing young Chinese entrepreneurs in New York.ĭuring low-key meetings at the Bank of China along Bryant Park and the China Institute in the Financial District, CHATT has gathered forces from 21 local restaurants-including Cafe China, Grain House, Junzi Kitchen, Little Tong, and MáLà Project-as well as four tea shops and half a dozen industry heavyweights, including Chowbus and Hall PR, all specifically to brainstorm and strategize for their futures. Chinese cooking is an art again, and gastro-impressionists are everywhere. The crisis, though, is also an opportunity, not just to reshape the landscape and palate, but to unveil a joy shrouded for centuries: a truly Chinese approach to food in this country, free from American habits and the white gaze. “The common reasons mentioned were upcoming retirement, long working hours, and diminishing sales.” “I would say more than 60% of these restaurants are selling or the owners are considering the possibility of selling,” he says. In recent weeks, whenever he went on location-scouting trips in some of New York’s most popular neighborhoods for Chinese restaurants-including the East Village, Harlem, Midtown West, and Two Bridges, among others-Xuhui Zhang, Junzi Kitchen’s head of real estate development, routinely encountered an alarming urgency.
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