Chop Suey

Panda Drive in Huntington Beach was one of the fi rst independently owned drive-through Chinese restaurants in California. After its brief initial success, however, business slid sharply. In the summer of 2004, its owner invited me to work with her to revamp the establishment. But the efforts to bring customers back were too late, and the restaurant eventually folded along with an other- wise refreshing food-business concept. I learned an important lesson fi rsthand: the creation of a successful restaurant hinges on the negotiations between the restaurateur and the clientele, and small-operation restaurants, in particular, must provide the kind of food and service that corresponds to the taste and life- style of the consumers. This lesson also helped me better understand the devel- opment of early Chinese restaurants, which were invariably small operations. In order to fully understand the making of Chinese food and its meaning, I in- vestigate key players in the process: Chinese American food providers and their non-Chinese clientele.

The mushrooming of Chinese restaurants resulted from the strenuous efforts of Chinese Americans in promoting their food. At the same time, such restau- rants would not have developed so extensively without the patronage of non- Chinese customers. While educating these new patrons about unfamiliar Chinese ingredients and utensils, Chinese restaurant workers also labored tire- lessly and deliberately to accommodate and satisfy those patrons’ needs and preferences. The American Chinese food that rose to prominence in turn-of-

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EBSCO Publishing : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 4/22/2022 4:03 PM via HOUSTON COMMUNITY COLLEGE SYSTEM AN: 871562 ; Yong Chen.; Chop Suey, USA : The Story of Chinese Food in America Account: s9009160.main.eds