It’s Not Christmas for Them Without Us

December 25, 2019 3:51 AM

Christmas service at the Princess Garden Chinese restaurant in Kansas City is an all-hands-on-deck family affair

Despite the restaurant’s history and the long history of Jewish families eating at Chinese restaurants on Christmas, Christmas at Princess Garden is only a 10-year-old tradition. It started when families, mostly Jewish, asked if the restaurant would open for them during the holiday. “I came to America and started working at 19, and now I’m 66,” Robert says. “I’ve seen customers get married, have kids, and then seen those kids bring in their own kids into the restaurant. We’ve fed people through birthdays, weddings, and funerals. Princess Garden is their family gathering restaurant.”

“So it was easy to say yes?” I ask. Robert nods. “I’m very honored they still want to come.”


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posted by poffin boffin (17 comments total)

Kansas City
They got some crazy little egg rolls there
posted by thelonius at 4:08 AM on December 25, 2019 [3 favorites]

I love Princess Garden and this article only makes me love them more.
posted by teleri025 at 6:05 AM on December 25, 2019 [1 favorite]

This is a very well written article.
posted by PinkMoose at 7:25 AM on December 25, 2019 [3 favorites]

I'm so grateful to the businesses that stay open on holidays and absorb the extra crush of customers. This article does a great job describing how hard they work. I only hope customers tip extra well. Good companion reading to yesterday's Chinese restaurants are closing. That's a good thing, the owners say. The American dream: work this hard so your kids don't have to.

I'm particularly grateful to that one bar / Jewish deli that was open on Christmas Eve, the day after my mother died, when my partner came in to town for the funeral hungry and needing a drink at 11:30pm. I was in a complete emotional fog and needed comfort too. Katz's never kloses is their slogan and I've never been so thankful.
posted by Nelson at 7:47 AM on December 25, 2019 [13 favorites]

At age 48 I'm in the middle of changing careers—not very successfully. I spent the last 20 years working like crazy as a "creative" at various ad agencies big and small, on everything from direct mail postcards to national integrated campaigns for big brands and Fortune 200 companies. Made a lot of money sometimes. No job was ever as hard or as demanding or as mentally challenging and draining as the restaurant work I did as food runner, waiter and room service waiter in my early 20s.

This article brought back quite a bit for me. Please tip generously.
posted by SoberHighland at 8:15 AM on December 25, 2019 [6 favorites]

Chinese Restaurants Are Closing. That’s a Good Thing, the Owners Say.
posted by robbyrobs at 8:38 AM on December 25, 2019

Please tip generously.
Waiting tables is hard AF, and I honestly don't think I could do it. Not that it's beneath me; I just don't think I am mentally and physically capable of handling that kind of pressure. Hats off to the hard-working people who can. And Kansas with its $2.13/hr bullshit can fuck right off. When we're visiting family in Kansas, we tip very generously, especially if it's a busy night and everyone looks frayed.
posted by xedrik at 8:39 AM on December 25, 2019 [4 favorites]

This was great. It's one thing for a business to stay open because you're always open, but another thing entirely to choose to open to serve a minority of customers -- so glad that it's paid off for them with so many other customers outside the Jewish community.
posted by Mchelly at 8:54 AM on December 25, 2019 [1 favorite]

The year we moved across the country, we spent Christmas on the road and picked up dinner at a Chinese restaurant in... Santa Fe maybe? It was packed, with a 45-minute wait just for to-go orders. I dunno if that was an unusually Jewish neighborhood or what. (Didn't strike me that way, but I don't know Santa Fe at all.)
posted by restless_nomad at 12:27 PM on December 25, 2019

I dunno if that was an unusually Jewish neighborhood or what.

I think it’s more likely that “only Jews go to restaurants on Christmas” is a myth, especially since literally billions of people on Earth are neither Christian nor Jewish.

I mean, assuming you aren’t Jewish, you were there.
posted by sideshow at 1:24 PM on December 25, 2019 [1 favorite]

Oh I am Jewish, as is my wife, which is why we looked for a Chinese restaurant on the road. Always was a thing for my family, for sure.
posted by restless_nomad at 1:26 PM on December 25, 2019 [1 favorite]

gently you have may doubled the Jewish population of Santa Fe as you were going through. Not really of course, there's plenty of Jewish folks around mostly in the Anglo community, but it's not like there's a concentrated Jewish neighborhood or something.

But Santa Fe and Northern New Mexico is also home to a large number of Crypto-Jews. Here's an article about them in 2000, another in 2014. Spanish-speaking families whose Christmas rituals involve 8 candles, treat Friday evening as a special night, maybe don't eat pork. It's all a centuries-old vestige of Jews fleeing persecution from Spain in the 16th century, moving to the New World, and hiding / assimilating while keeping some Jewish traditions. It's a remarkable story; filthy light thief did a comprehensive post about it back in 2015.
posted by Nelson at 2:22 PM on December 25, 2019 [4 favorites]

OK I said there were few Jewish people in Santa Fe out of ignorance. Here's more info on the Jewish community in New Mexico, which counts some 6000 Jews in Santa Fe. Also notes that 4% of the Jews in New Mexico label themselves Crypto-Jews. Also here's a map of percentage Jewish population in the US, which shows the highest concentration around Santa Fe.

(Apologies for the long derail. Now I'm sad I'm not having Chinese food for Christmas dinner.)
posted by Nelson at 2:36 PM on December 25, 2019 [2 favorites]

Being Jewish and having observed the symbiotic tradition of enjoying Chinese food on Christmas for my entire adult life, I introduced my dearest to dim sum today! We went to Asian Jewels in Flushing. It was about a 45-minute wait. It was comforting to go there, this being my first Christmas and Hanukkah in the city, after years living in neighborhoods right near what is essentially St. Louis' Chinatown. That area is now in peril due to big-box development in the works, in a gentrification process parallel to what happened to (and destroyed dozens of family-owned places in) the Delmar Loop already during the Loop Trolley boondoggle. Like in my old neighborhood, the families, couples, and groups of friends at Asian Jewels were mostly Chinese, with just a handful of white and possibly Jewish folks. So yeah, it's definitely not just Jewish people who go out for Chinese food and dim sum on Christmas.
posted by limeonaire at 2:44 PM on December 25, 2019 [1 favorite]

I’m not Jewish but living far away from my family means I don’t always get to have a “Christmas Dinner” so it’s been nice that I can count on the Chinese restaurants to be open. It’s kind of a semi tradition for me and whoever I happen to be around on Christmas. Many thanks to the people who work while the rest of the country mostly takes the day off.
posted by LizBoBiz at 7:21 AM on December 26, 2019 [1 favorite]

I have had dim sum for Christmas, many times in my younger adult days, and it was great. These days I am caring for elders and the elders would be horrified by dim sum, so we cook a conventional turkey at home. I hope dim sum will still be there for me when the elders are gone, but that the day does not arrive too quickly.
posted by elizilla at 8:21 AM on December 26, 2019

Oh! Wow. This is right in my neighborhood (Waldo represent!). I love this place and wish my family did as well as we'd eat there more often. It's good to see more behind the scenes of local restaurants which brings me back to my high school job days. To echo SoberHighland - remember these are people and doing a lot of work. Be kind in your tipping.
posted by Ylem at 5:14 PM on December 26, 2019 [1 favorite]