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Raleigh, North Carolina (CNN Business) – Chinese restaurants are in serious trouble in the United States.
As of April 15, 59% of independent Chinese restaurants across the United States had stopped transacting with debit and credit cards, indicating that they have ceased operations, according to Womply, a data subscription service. Womply tracks credit and debit card transactions to provide market information to 10 million small businesses.
Restaurants across the United States are suffering due to pandemic business closings, but Chinese restaurants are by far the most affected segment of the industry, Womply reported.
Many Chinese restaurants will not survive the coronavirus pandemic without specific government intervention, advocates warn.
Before the coronavirus outbreak, 270 restaurants operated in New York’s Chinatown, according to Wellington Chen, executive director of the Manhattan Chinatown Association’s Local Development Corporation. Only 40 remain open, Chen told CNN Business on Friday.
A large number of Chinese restaurants in San Francisco’s Chinatown have similarly ceased operations, according to Malcolm Yeung, executive director of the city’s Chinatown Community Development Center. Yeung, who also serves as a board member of the local Chinese Chamber of Commerce, said San Francisco’s Chinatown generally has around 150 Chinese restaurants in business, but now only 40 remain in operation.
Although Chinese restaurants around the world have become synonymous with takeaway and home delivery, many traditional Chinese restaurants only offer dinner service at the restaurant. Yeung and Chen noted that many traditional Chinese restaurants in Chinatown districts of major cities reject delivery services like GrubHub, because those services charge high fees.
“These [restaurantes chinos] they already had thin operating margins before, ”Yeung explained. “The transition [a la tecnología] delivery will make them even thinner. ”
Chen said he expects Chinese restaurants to receive specific funds and aid programs from the local, state and federal government. “If we don’t get the aid, we can’t strike a balance,” Chen said.
Congress is expected to pass an agreement to replenish the federal government’s Paycheck Protection Program, which last month quickly depleted its $ 349 billion economic rescue fund for small businesses. Some of those funds will go to underserved companies, including minority-run ones.
A large portion of the nation’s Chinese restaurants are independent and lack the capital reserves of corporate chains, which may be better positioned to weather the financial storm of the coronavirus, said a spokesman for PF Chang, which has more than 200 restaurants. Americans.
The spokesman said the Asian chain’s take-out and home delivery business has “doubled in size” since mid-March.
“Fortunately, the model with which all types of restaurants in our country must operate today is one that we know well and are exceptionally good at,” a PF Chang spokesperson said by email.
