Behind the Delivery: Red Rose Chinese Food
Jack Sy, raised by first generation immigrant parents who had opened a Chinese restaurant of their own, has always had a passion for the culinary world. After college, Jack worked in the banking industry for 13 years before he decided that it was time to bring his family together and start his own business cooking a blend of Chinese American food.
With influences from his father who was the head chef at the family restaurant, cooking Americanized Chinese food is important for Jack as he believes this style of cooking is authentic to America and so are his dishes. Trying to innovate and differentiate from the traditional variety of Chinese restaurants, Jack tried new dishes with the goal to debunk the inaccurate stereotypes of Chinese food being unclean. He eventually found success and was able to expand to 2 locations last May. Below is a photo of one of their locations opening day.
Before COVID-19, businesses were doing well, the restaurant had made a name in the community. Since COVID-19 hit, Jack described the time as extremely tough during which workers quit in worry of their own safety and health. Being a family business, there was an overwhelming level of uneasiness about how they would continue with concerns of not only their own health, but safety for their families and vulnerable people within the community. Overall it was an incredibly turbulent environment to work in and made him have to make the difficult decisions on how to keep the business running while navigating his family through the challenging situation.
Unfortunately, a year into opening their second location, Red Rose was hit hard by COVID-19 pandemic and had to shut down both their restaurants for months. In the interview, Jack stated he attempted to “just stay the course” as the restaurant has recently reopened even when sale percentages would dip as low as 50% during this challenging time. The stigma of COVID-19 being associated with Asia created by Trump, who repeatedly used phrases such as “China virus” and “Kung Flu”, has led to local Asian businesses all over the US suffering significantly and Red Rose was only one of them.
Luckily, as of recent there has been an uptick in the business that Red Rose has been getting as a result of more people ordering out and the assistance that Feed Your Hospital has been able to provide to Red Rose as a trusted restaurant partner. We at FYH are glad to be able to push Red Rose through this challenging time in history and hope to see it to the end. It is said that the flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and beautiful of all.