Reflective Urbanisms:

Mapping New York Chinatown

In washing clothes, we had Saturdays and Sundays and holidays off, so I came back to work in the restaurant because I had to — we were short in manpower. My other younger brother came to help but it was hard to hire people in the past. 

+ What about the menu – how has it changed over time?
The menu is the same as in the beginning… but later on, due to garment factories being moved overseas/abroad, there have been less workers in Chinatown, which has affected the business. Back then, because people didn’t have a lot of time to have lunch, we created lunchboxes, so people could just buy them out of convenience.

There haven’t been many changes, but we make sure that our goods are sold at a reasonable price. We also want to make sure that we get along with our neighbors. We have those relationships and that’s who we sell to – our neighbors.

After I go fishing, I come back to our store and I also sell fish out of my shop.

+ How long has Mee Sum Cafe been in this building?
Since 1967, we’ve been renting the basement and the ground floor.

There’s a space in the back of the basement where we make zongzi (Chinese rice tamales).

+ Who owns the building?
A very old Chinese owner. The owner will come find us to sign the lease; there hasn’t been an issue since 1967 and we’ve rented since then. There is one owner — we’ve never worried about the lease.

Now, his sons come instead of him and will sometimes eat here too.

+ Can you share any information about the building’s history or its past lives?
Tell me about the renovations you completed on the interior.
It was a Chinese medicine and herb shop before. A fire happened and then no one was renting, so my father took over. It’s unknown when the fire happened, but it was vacant for a while before we took over. 

We were famous for our baked buns — Dan tat, gai mei bao, chasiu bao — they were trendy at the time, so we had good business and we could make up for the expenses in less than half a year. 

The space has been the same since we opened up. Nothing much has been changed since 1967 except for the ceiling. Back then, there wasn’t a lot of government regulation on construction workers, but for us, we found foreign construction workers, which was twice the price, but we hired these…

For us, when we hired the workers/designer to do the construction, they had a blueprint — we needed the DOB to approve it. They told us how to meet the legal regulations — like the angle that a pipe had to be at, etc. and we had to be mindful of these rules. In the past, many coffee shops had a bar table with the stools (like in our cafe) and only old shops like us have these kinds of stools now. 

John from Mei Mei bakery (across the street) gave us the cash register that’s upstairs and also an ice maker (which was too expensive for us to buy), even though we were in the same business. They were really nice about it, as neighbors. It’s important to show gratitude. 

The menu is a little different now… Later we added a few items, changed a few items. Ham Gai (salted chicken) was added to the menu. We didn’t have a menu at the beginning — people who were customers knew each other and would just order what they wanted. Then later on we had a menu.