1/4/2024 0 Comments Closing jing fong restaurant![]() ![]() All of the parties in March were canceled, too, he said. But on that day, Lam counted just 36 guests.īusiness had started to slow as early as January and was down 80%. Jing Fong’s dining room is massive a destination for banquets and weddings, it can hold up to 794 people - and on weekends, there has historically been a long wait to get in for dim sum. During the peak lunch hour, he went upstairs to count how many customers he still had. “It’s going to be different but better in some ways.Ten days before New York issued a stay-at-home order, Truman Lam, 35, was already contemplating whether to close his restaurant Jing Fong, an icon in Manhattan’s Chinatown. Even though we’re going from big to small, we’re trying to survive and hopefully come out the other end,” he says. “People look at Jing Fong as a symbol of resilience in Chinatown. And as tourists and regulars slowly make their way back, Lam is cautiously optimistic. Instead of the usual 20 roving carts, Jing Fong now has three in the dining room, though all menu items can be ordered via servers on the floor. That endurance means constant tinkering in the new space. “But I think people in general like that we’re trying to continue on.” “There are old customers who come in and they’re like, ‘Holy crap, this is all you have?” Lam says with a laugh. He eventually settled on an old dim sum spot nearby, and this past December, the new Jing Fong debuted a slightly larger menu (see: crab fried rice, egg tofu) and much smaller space (it seats 125). ![]() He knew he couldn’t replicate the old Jing Fong space with its three levels, high ceilings, and opulent feel. On March 7, 2021, Jing Fong closed its dining room on Elizabeth Street permanently, and Lam was tasked with another project: finding a new home for the beloved restaurant. “I’m everything from intern to vice chairman.” “I went from helping on one little project to being more involved with the entire business,” he adds. "People look at Jing Fong as a symbol of resilience in Chinatown." Lam has now been working at Jing Fong for a decade. They asked him to modernize the business operations, transforming everything that had been previously done by pencil and paper into spreadsheets. ![]() “It was kind of an accident.” After leaving his job in investment banking, he took some time off and helped his parents, who’d assumed ownership of Jing Fong in 2008. “I did not intend to be involved with the restaurant business,” Lam says. Lam grew up going to the restaurant’s 300-square-foot office with his grandfather and ate with his family at the restaurant, but he never thought he’d return as an adult. His grandfather, Shui Ling Lam, owned Jing Fong when he was a kid. It’s possibly the most New York restaurant: always busy, never boring.īut for Truman Lam, Jing Fong was simply the family business. It’s the gathering place for Chinese community associations and hallowed ground for dim sum nerds who spend their weekend mornings chasing down carts of ha cheung, plush rice rolls stuffed with juicy shrimp and drizzled with sweet-savory soy sauce. Jing Fong is more than just a banquet hall and dim sum spot in Manhattan’s Chinatown. ![]()
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