12/27/2023 0 Comments Wo hop restaurant nyc![]() Very nice watercolor landscapes of France line the walls. Though the townhouse premises is grandly faced with polished red granite and a gilt calf head, the interior feels every year of its age, with a red leather banquette running along its margins. And we’re going to continue to support one another.The oldest French bistro in the city - dating to 1937 - is Le Veau d’Or (The Golden Calf), just down the block from a French Huguenot church of colonial vintage. The owner treats all the staff well, like just one big family. To us, Wo Hop means “big family.” The words actually mean “togetherness, or “co-existing.” But when I started working here, I soon found that everyone acts as a family. In order for everyone to succeed, everyone needs to unite.Īll immigrants move in the hopes of having a better life, a better future. I hope that the restaurant goes back to normalcy, where everyone works as much as they need, where everyone’s united, and there’s no anti-Asian sentiment. I hope the government ramps up vaccinations so we can turn the corner even faster. In the midst of the pandemic, the restaurant closing was only one thing, because at that point, I didn’t even know how I was going to leave home to work again. So I did have that fear that Wo Hop could close for good, and I didn’t really have a plan for that. There have been a lot of businesses in Chinatown that closed down permanently over the last year. But now, with the vaccinations, there’s a sense that it’s going to get better. Pre-vaccinations, I didn’t really have much hope. Now, I do sense some hope and see some light at the end of the tunnel. But I’ve noticed that now, when I go places, I feel that I get looked at a little differently. I haven’t been targeted by any hate crimes over the last year, fortunately, and I don’t know anyone who has been, either. Pre-pandemic, if one of my family members called me, it would be like, “Hey, can you grab something on the way home?” But now it’s like, “Hey, where are you? Are you home yet?” My family will sometimes call me to see where I am, and to make sure I return home safely. That’s all you can do, just be more careful. There was a stabbing not too far from here, on Worth Street, and since the incident, we have been telling people to be extra cautious when we’re out and about. But now, because of the pandemic, the streets have been deserted. Back then, I never felt scared because once I left, there were people in the streets. ![]() Pre-pandemic, I used to work the night shift. The city allows restaurants to stay open until 11 p.m., but we close at 9 p.m., just to give the workers time to get home before it’s too late. ![]() The majority of the people I’ve interacted with are nice, and are nice to Chinese people. There’s a lot of anti-Asian rhetoric that’s been going on, but I don’t want people to think that everyone’s like that. Over the last year, I have definitely felt less safe. Pretty much everyone who works here also receives some government aid. I am still receiving some government aid, and together, it’s okay for now. For me, the money is just sufficient for food. So, since reopening, we have greatly reduced hours, with most people only working two days a week. The management wanted to bring everyone back to work and ensure that everyone gets a fair chance at working shifts and getting paid. Now that there are restrictions on hours of operation, we can’t possibly be open 24/7 with everyone working as many hours as before. So we used to have people working the day shift and the night shift. We have a staff of 21 people, and before the pandemic, the restaurant was open for business 24 hours a day. If someone ever needed money, they would forward our next paycheck in advance, just to give us a little leeway. While it was closed, the management tried to do as much as possible to help out the staff. In Chinese culture, we try to save money for a rainy day, so that was my rainy-day fund. In the meantime, I had to rely solely on my savings. For the first two months after applying, I didn’t receive any benefits.
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