FAT WHORES MOURN: Why so many Chinese restaurants are closing down

I’m not watching an 18 minute video.

Answer - their kids are going to college and getting professional jobs.

Happens all the time.

I remember reading about this in the NYT 5+ years ago. R2 is correct.

The "Sum Ting Wong" joke is incredibly funny, intelligent and sophisticated.

Ho Li Phuk

American Chinese food is hit or miss.

I work as a salon manager for a corporation that does extensive (exhaustive) sales and labor analytics, and can tell you that we got used to cheap food and services, and aside from their kids going to college, the rent, supplies and labor has DOUBLED since the pandemic. To cut cost, the food has became more starchy, breaded and devoid of vegetables. It was very different when I was a kid.

The math doesn’t math anymore. I cannot pay someone $16 an hour to do a $16 haircut and stay in business. If they doubled the price, you might as well go out to a white tablecloth and sit down to enjoy a finer experience than scarf it out of a paper bag.

Every Chinese place near me needs a good power blasting through the entire store, mired in scum, so even if the food is great, you have to kind of look the other way to enjoy it.

I know a woman went into a Chinese restaurant and never come out. They probably took her off in a boat or somethin'!

The cheap “American Chinese food” places with their vibes of worker exploitation and the worst level of factory-farmed chicken can all close down for all I care. Better places, though fewer, will survive.

Has a senile Beatrice Lillie been reached for comment?

Most of them have been using Hispanic workers for the last decade or so. They used to exploit newly arrived Asian immigrants, but that supply has dried up because most of the illegal Asian immigrants are more often used in other industries, like massage parlors and nail salons.

I used to get my hair cut at a Chinese beauty shop, and it was bizarre to listen to the shampoo ladies speak Spanish to each other while the Asian stylists were speaking Chinese to each other.

Also, the rent is just too damned high. I miss the little hole-in-the-wall places where I could get an inexpensive order to-go.

R7 has a good point. Why are the restaurants so run down, dingy and downright gross looking? We have one with good food where I live but my husband said it has looked the same inside since he was a kid 30+ years ago.

R7: The food has sucked for a long time.The same gelatinous sauces and stringy chicken.

Besides the kids growing up and parents getting tired of running small businesses, people are more chooses about Chinese food, because much of it has been the mall food court/strip mall buffet junk.

[quote] Answer - their kids are going to college and getting professional jobs. Happens all the time.

But was this not always the case? I just assumed that these restaurants were run by the first generation and the second generation went and did other things once adults. What has changed now?

Exactly that, R13. People these days aren’t as willing to feel polluted after eating the food, even if it’s relatively cheap.

There are a few excellent Chinese restaurants around me that are doing great and I hope they last… it’s all the “average rating 3.6” shitholes that can fold, and deserve to.

R9 Cheap chicken fried and smothered in diabetes sauce.

Mandarin Palace in Center City Philadelphia. My go-to Chinese restaurant for 30 years. The one in my South Philly neighborhood is awful. I don’t know what Mandarin does but I love it.

[quote]I know a woman went into a Chinese restaurant and never come out. They probably took her off in a boat or somethin'!

Tell me more.

I assume the issue mostly with old-school family-run one-off places in smaller markets. I live in the Chinese food capital of the US and there are, if anything, way too many Chinese restaurants.

Sum Ting Wong and Ho Li Phuk stopped being amusing -- if they ever were -- when the romanization of Chinese names moved from the Wade-Giles system (Mao Tse Tung) to the Pinyin system (Mao Zedong).

Something tells me R20 won’t approve of Wun Hung Lo, or Cum of Sum Yung Guy.

"The same gelatinous sauces and stringy chicken"

Oh honey that ain't chicken..

There was a place in Philadelphia between 13TH and Broad that had the nastiest pork dumplings. The dumplings smelled like wet dogs and the taste was vile. I went there on my lunch break at the suggestion of a co worker. Maybe she secretly hated me, who knows but that was some nasty food. I got my money back. I told a drinking buddy of mine and he told me that the restaurant had several health code violations including rodent activity and roaches. Eventually it was shut down and replaced by some frou frou ice cream shop.