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I started working at my dad’s Chinese restaurant and jewelry (jade) store in 1976 when I was in elementary school. Even though I could barely see over the counter, I had a knack for marketing and customer service. Next door was a Mexican jewelry store with beautiful silver buckles and turquoise earrings. We played with their kids and my mom ended up becoming best friends with the owners, a Mexican woman and her Mormon husband. Ahead of their time, both jewelry stores closed after several years.
Our Chinese restaurant was the first in a mall (pre-food court era) and the only one with a steam table! Unlike other immigrants who went into the food business full-time, my dad came to the U.S. on academic scholarship and had established his own career as an engineering consultant. He opened the restaurant and jewelry store so that my relatives could immigrate to the U.S. and have jobs.
Like the restaurant’s name, we served fresh, handmade eggrolls and my dad’s own sweet tea recipe. Before we opened, eggrolls were mass-produced with stringy cabbage and artificially-colored meat bits and frozen – ugh! People hiked across the mall for our sweet tea and eggrolls! Even my dad, who preferred BK Whoppers, enjoyed the fresh eggrolls, handmade by my aunt everyday.
In addition to kitchen prep work, I was queen of the Coke machine and cashier! I had to stand on a beer box to reach the cash register. Some customers would see me and hesitate. After a while, regular customers got to know me and would even tip me! My sisters worked there after school. To this day, my sister says she can’t eat snow peas because of the “trauma” of shucking 50 lb crates of snow peas. My mom was a school teacher and came out on the weekends. I missed some football games on Saturday nights, but most of the time, it was interesting and I got paid.
As I got older, I realized how grueling the restaurant business was. The hours were long and the work was not glamorous. It took a toll on our family life and on my parent’s marriage. At the same time, it taught me the values of work, sacrifice and perseverance. The eventual success of the business (after multiple models and my father’s amazing business acumen) gave us a middle class life and paid our way through college. For that, I am eternally grateful.
