To the next generation

December 24, 2019 7:40 PM

Chinese restaurants are closing. That's a good thing, the owners say. [SLNYT]
posted by Conspire (14 comments total)

This happened back in 2012 to my family’s favorite Chinese restaurant. We were heartbroken as customers, but theIr kids were going on to better things. On the upside, it was an impetus for me to up my cooking game so I could do some of the dishes we loved. I did a whole dinner for our family on Christmas Eve a few years back. It taught me further appreciation for their hard work and skill, because MAN was it a lot of work to deliver a soup and three entrees in a tight window.
posted by notoriety public at 8:45 PM on December 24, 2019 [6 favorites]

So do people not sell restaurant businesses? If I search for "businesses for sale in santa clara county" I see plenty of them for sale. Even the article mentions sales as an alternative to closings.
posted by pwnguin at 9:43 PM on December 24, 2019

Selling restaurants is discussed in the last several paragraphs. I imagine not everyone can find a buyer, though it sounds like many at least want to.
posted by mbrubeck at 9:47 PM on December 24, 2019

An investor who declines the purchase of a turnkey Chinese food business is a dumbass. Chinese joints (and pizza joints, to a lesser degree) are like the only ones that just don't go out of business. New restaurants usually shut their doors after a year or two, but ask your local Chinese restaurateurs how long they've been open. Answer's gonna be like 50 years. (I will admit that Chinese joints occasionally do burn down. It's probably advisable to have good insurance.)
posted by Sterros at 10:02 PM on December 24, 2019 [13 favorites]

So do people not sell restaurant businesses?

not if they can't find someone to buy them - and it isn't just restaurants or chinese businesses - i know of several businesses that are no longer open, from hardware stores to upscale small grocery stores, simply because the owner was retiring and didn't have kids that wanted to carry on and couldn't find a buyer

the idea of the independent mom and pop business is slowly dying
posted by pyramid termite at 4:23 AM on December 25, 2019 [1 favorite]

I came to realize with the end of Di Angelo Brothers (a spectacular sausage shop) that a unique business can't just be transferred-- it takes preparation for continuity to happen.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 5:28 AM on December 25, 2019 [3 favorites]

A couple that works 80+ hours a week might have a pretty big effect on the viability of a restaurant... Sales aren't without risk.

I kinda wonder whether the replacement rate is lower as other se asian restaurants become more common. It seems like it used to be quite common for Koreans opening a place to just choose a different ethnicity: I know a bunch of Korean owned diners and Japanese places. But lately there seem to be a lot more explicitly Korean restaurants around... (bibimbop is like the perfect dinner, so I'm a big fan of this.)
posted by kaibutsu at 5:53 AM on December 25, 2019 [3 favorites]

> An investor who declines the purchase of a turnkey Chinese food business is a dumbass. Chinese joints (and pizza joints, to a lesser degree) are like the only ones that just don't go out of business.

Many immigrant-owned restaurants stay afloat mostly by keeping labor costs as low as possible by employing as many family members as they can. Buying out a place means you also no longer have access to the pools of spouses, siblings, cousins, sons, daughters, nieces and nephews that had been pressed into service for less than restaurant-minimum wages. These places are not all licenses to print money, they're staying open due to sheer tenacity and the lack of anything to fall back on.
posted by at by at 6:46 AM on December 25, 2019 [29 favorites]

In some cases, the family owns the building - which is much easier to sell. The article didn't go into depth on this, but a fairly common pattern is to close the business and sell the building. It's the proceeds from the real estate that funds retirement.
posted by elwoodwiles at 10:58 AM on December 25, 2019 [10 favorites]

At my favourite (soon to close, though unrelated to retirement/age, I think), my 2.5 year old son loves to eat dumplings. He actually just got a set of training chopsticks in his xmas stocking and he's eager to go try them out. Anyway, this place is not just my favourite, it's everyone's and it's basically full day and night with a big extra room in the back that they open on weekend when you'll be waiting for a table, for sure. I have 0 doubt they're making money hand over fist. They don't take debit. They don't deliver and haven't signed up with any of the food delivery services (uber, foodora, skipthedishes etc.) because they really don't have to.

My son is a big hit with the owner. We often go for early dinners, when it's just starting to fill up, so the owner isn't necessarily run ragged at that time. He comes over to fawn over my son. So one day when my son is talking to him about siu mai and hargaw and bao, the owner says "Siu mai, hargow, bao! You speak chinese better than my son!"

And on our way home I was thinking "geez, this guy has a son? As far as I can tell, he's been in that restaurant from 11am to 2am, 7 days a week for the past 20 years. Is it that surprising if his kid can't speak Chinese?" Really, I appreciate the sacrifices he makes so I can feast, but this seems like an unbearably difficult way to live, and if he's retiring when his restaurant closes, he's certainly earned some relaxation.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 7:26 PM on December 25, 2019 [3 favorites]

Yeah, i didn't imagine my kid actually speaks chinese better than his. But nonetheless it seems like a hard family life to work as many hours as he obviously does.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 9:04 PM on December 25, 2019 [3 favorites]

Apropos of the day - at one point I was explaining the whole deal behind a "Jews eating Chinese food on Christmas" joke to some people who weren't familiar, and my coworker, whose parents own a Chinese restaurant, pointed out that its not such a great time for the family members stuck working in the restaurant on Christmas! She's definitely among those not looking to go back to the family business any time soon, as far as I know.
posted by atoxyl at 12:28 AM on December 26, 2019 [1 favorite]

If anyone is interested in a book expanding on this topic a lot, check out Chop Suey Nation by Ann Hui. I read it earlier this year and it was suuuuuuuper interesting and goes more into depth on some of the dynamics and reasoning and history of Chinese restaurants in Canada. So good.
posted by urbanlenny at 6:58 PM on December 26, 2019 [2 favorites]

In some cases, the family owns the building ...a fairly common pattern is to close the business and sell the building. It's the proceeds from the real estate that funds retirement.

Or, close the restaurant and rent the building. Especially if the neighborhood they're in is being re-developed and/or gentrified.

On the flip side, for those who don't own the property it may be a problem to transfer a long lease to new owners, which might make the restaurant significantly less profitable (or unsustainable) if re-priced. Especially in those gentrifying areas.
posted by snuffleupagus at 7:12 AM on December 27, 2019