Some of my staff members have been with me for over 20 years. We just want to keep the old traditions alive and see how long we can go on. Not many places do it like we do.Īny plans for the future? Both amidst and beyond the pandemic? What are some of the most popular dishes from your menu?Ĭrabs Cantonese style with black bean sauce, snails, all the salt and pepper dishes, pan fried flounder, and spring chicken. We’re currently primarily doing takeout orders, though we do also have limited outdoor dining available. We’re trying to stay strong and have confidence that things will get better, as it feels like it can't get any worse. Today, we’re just trying to hang in there and take things one day at a time. I want to build that family environment and sense of community. I want to make my customers feel like I really care when I ask them how they are doing. I really want to get to know my customers.
However, I would still rather have the customer walk in and meet them in person so that I can get to know them. Before the pandemic, I wasn’t really active on social media at all. When we re-opened, I started using social media apps to connect with my customers. We kept only 1/3 of our staff, and it’s been a very rough few months. When we opened back up on May 2nd, the business was down by 80% as we had to rely purely on takeout, which is normally only 10% of our total sales. In the six to eight weeks between then and March 15th, business was already down 50%. I had actually been thinking about closing for a while because it had been really slow since the Chinese New Year (January 22). I closed Hop Kee on March 15th - one day before the executive order to shut down all restaurants. How have you been faring with the impact of COVID? What are some things that you have been doing to stay open? I’m just trying to preserve what’s been working for us for all these years. However, other than these menu additions, I’ve made very few changes to the restaurant. People are not as into the old-style chow mein anymore– now, they’re into things like pan fried noodles. Since taking over the restaurant from my father, I’ve added a few new items to the menu that cater to a younger crowd: Peking style pork chops, salt and pepper flavored entrees (squid, pork chops, shrimp), etc. Before, people loved to hang out in Chinatown. Nowadays, people prefer to go to Lower East Side or a fancy rooftop bar. We’ve had to move up our closing times because the times have changed- the night scene in Chinatown is not as lively as it used to be. Then after 2000, we began closing at 1am. By the late 1980's, we began closing at 4am. The only difference is that we used to be open 24 hours a day. Could you please talk about how the restaurant has changed over the years?Įven after all these years, Hop Kee hasn't changed much at all with regards to our day to day operations. Your restaurant has been open since 1968. At the time, the restaurant in Hop Kee’s current location was run by my father’s cousins, so my father took over the business from them, and the rest is history. After working at Wo Hop for a few years, my father and his partners had gained enough experience working in the restaurant industry to open their own restaurant.
His first job after immigrating to the US was working as a chef at Wo Hop, another Cantonese style restaurant right next to Hop Kee. What inspired you to start your restaurant?īack in Hong Kong, my father worked in the auto industry. My grandfather on my father’s side had served in the US Army for WWII and did all the paperwork for my family to move to the US. I was only two years old when we made the move, and my younger brother was only one at the time. My family (my father, mom, younger brother and myself) immigrated from Hong Kong to New York in 1965.
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