“Like a Ghost Town”: An Interview with Elizabeth Yee, Owner of Tonii’s Fresh Rice Noodle
By Micah Cash
Tonii’s Fresh Rice Noodle makes no mystery of their signature dishes. As you approach their location on 83 Bayard Street, in the heart of New York’s Chinatown, you can’t miss the mascot on their awning: a smiling sponge cake in a chef’s hat and high heels, holding a plate of steaming hot rice rolls. Inside, a handwritten chalkboard menu covers the wall leading to a checkout counter through which you can see your food being prepared as you order it. For only $4.50, Tonii’s noodles are sumptuous and filling, perfectly complemented by the sauce of your choice.
Like all New York City restaurants, Tonii’s has been forced to adapt to the reality of the pandemic. One can’t help but notice that the streets around Tonii’s aren’t packed with their usual tourists. And just inside the restaurant’s door, next to reminders to wear a mask and wash your hands, is a different kind of sign, emblematic of the particular difficulty of running a restaurant in Chinatown: “I am Asian, but I am NOT a virus.”
A few weeks after I tasted Tonii’s for the first time, their owner, Elizabeth Yee, was kind enough to answer my questions about running a restaurant in Chinatown during the pandemic, and how organizations like Feed the Frontlines NYC and Welcome to Chinatown have helped them stay afloat. The following interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity:
MC: Could you share a little bit about your restaurant, Tonii’s? How long have you been in Chinatown, what kind of food do you serve, and who are your customers?
EY: We’ve been open since October 2019, so about a year now. Our business is a branch of our mother shop, New Kam Hing, located at 118 Baxter St., which is also owned by my family. At Tonii’s, we serve our famous Kam Hing sponge cakes and our fresh assorted topping rice rolls (also known as rice noodles).
Our customers are mostly regulars of Chinatown. We cater to all generations— both old and young— because our dishes are simple. Our rice rolls are soft and silky, which is perfect for kids and elders. Our cakes are fluffy and light, which is also universally appealing.
My family is what inspired me to open Tonii’s. Growing up, my siblings and I always had New Kam Hing as our home base. I would hang out there with my friends after school, and I would work there on the weekends with my brother. We would have family BBQs and holiday parties there as well. Having the store play such a central role in my life when I was growing up made me realize that if I opened a shop of my own, my kids would have a chance to make the same childhood memories. Thus, I opened Tonii’s for my kids’ future— so that I could give my kids a home base, and let them know that no matter what happens, their family is right there.
MC: How has the pandemic impacted the day-to-day operations of your restaurant?
EY: We have been doing okay. Most of my staff quit at the beginning of March, so overhead hasn’t been high. It was mainly just my husband and brother working with me at the time. We did everything in-house, meaning my dad would cut and prep vegetables and meat, and my brother would cook the curry, beef tripe, tea eggs, etc. My husband and I would alternate shifts with our remaining workers to serve customers and make rice noodles and sponge cakes. Between the three of us (my husband, brother, and myself), we were at the store every day from 7am - 10pm. In order to increase the flow of business, we extended our open hours and tried to introduce new food options, such as fried rice (we no longer serve fried rice; that was just a temporary thing that we did during the pandemic).
During COVID, we also had the chance to work with Vic and Jen from Welcome to Chinatown to help feed our frontline workers through their Feed Our Heroes initiative as well as by partnering with Feed the Frontlines. The initiative was able to help us get our name out there and brought us some new business. As a result, we were able to keep the remaining staff that we had, and we began to believe that we could overcome this slump.
MC: How has the lack of tourism due to the pandemic affected Tonii’s and Chinatown as a whole?
EY: The lack of tourism has made Chinatown feel like a ghost town. Canal Street was bursting with thousands of people one day, and then the blocks were suddenly empty the next. This was surprising for me to see because I grew up right on Canal Street and was used to the hustle and bustle of life in Chinatown.
I do believe that the challenges of the pandemic helped bring restaurants and business owners together, as I wouldn’t have the same relationship with the other owners as I do now had the pandemic never happened. When I met with other restaurant owners during the pandemic, we formed an immediate bond because we all had one mission: to keep Chinatown going. We looked out for each other, and we helped each other. To be honest, the pandemic helped me form some new, lasting friendships.
MC: One side effect of the pandemic has been a resurgence of xenophobia toward people of Asian descent. How has this changed Tonii’s relationship with your community and city?
EY: Not much has changed; we looked out for our community before, and we still do now. If any problems arise, we’re always ready to step in. We aren’t afraid because we’ve always been proud to be Chinese. We have a great relationship with our Guardian Angels, and we support them and thank them for fully defending our community.
MC: What are Tonii’s plans and hopes for the future, amidst and beyond the pandemic?
EY: Hopefully, we can open our mother store, New Kam Hing on 118 Baxter St., back up! We’re in the midst of reconstructing that bakery to sell some of the same items that we sell at Tonii’s.
My hope is that our business will transcend generations and that mothers will continue bringing their children, who will grow up and bring their children, and so on.
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To help Chinatown restaurants like Tonii’s, please consider donating to Feed the Frontlines NYC and selecting the “Support Chinatown restaurants” designation label, volunteer with us, and visit Welcome to Chinatown to learn more about how they are helping neighborhood businesses remain resilient through this crisis. If you’re interested in volunteering with us, please reach out at info@feedthefrontlinesnyc.org.
Micah Cash is a volunteer for Feed the Frontlines NYC. He is pursuing an M.F.A. in Creative Writing at Columbia University. He has published opinion writing in The Wall Street Journal, Stanford Daily, and elsewhere, long-form journalism for Stanford Politics, cultural commentary for the Stanford Review, and satire for the Stanford Flipside. He is from Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Photos courtesy of Sydney Hard. Special thanks to Vic Lee, Jennifer Tam and Alice Huang.
