Tacoma’s Asian restaurants not yet hurting from coronavirus fears, but they worry

Two friends chatted over fried rice while a mother with young children bouncing around the entryway paid for a pick-up order.

It was a Monday night, and the small dining room at Hong Kong Restaurant in Fern Hill was half-full — not bad for a Monday. Mary Lee, who described herself as the owner’s wife, kept busy at the host stand answering the phone and serving customers.

Lee said business has been “steady” despite concerns surrounding the spread of the novel coronavirus, which has killed nine people in King County and one in Snohomish County.

Traffic slows down at this time of year regardless, explained Lee — a sort of post-holiday, pre-summer saving mechanism.

“I ask, but people aren’t worried,” she said, adding that young people in particular seem unfazed. Even her daughter, a social worker, told her not to panic.

The News Tribune spoke with nearly a dozen Asian-owned restaurants and grocers — primarily in Lakewood, home to many Korean-owned businesses, and the Lincoln International District — to ask if they were experiencing the same downturn reported in Chinatowns across America.

Overall, the mood seemed cheery with a side of can’t-predict-the-future concern.

“We deal with it day after day, but we just don’t know,” said Lee.

At Ho Soon Yi, one of many Korean restaurants in the heart of Lakewood’s multicultural restaurant strip on South Tacoma Way, owner Hye Oh expressed more concern for her kids at school than business at the restaurant, which has been “the same.”

“Everybody is talking about it, but they’re not yet worried,” she said.

June Wang, the owner of Yen Ching at 88th Street, said they weren’t yet impacted. Regular customers continue to support the 40-year-old restaurant as they always have, she said.

Across the street at H Mart, the Korean grocery chain with headquarters in New Jersey, an employee told me the store had run out of masks, but otherwise business seemed typical.

Likewise, at Boo Han Market in Lincoln, manager Han Lee agreed, though he conceded that customers appear to be stocking up on staples — especially large bags of rice. In Lincoln, at Hong Kong Supermarket, manager Tao Nguyen said rice, noodles and fish sauce were moving fast.

Some wholesalers have struggled to fill orders for certain items due to supply chain issues, but only in the past week has he noticed a shift in customer behavior and traffic.

“I don’t think it’s gonna last long,” he said.

Since its discovery two months ago, COVID-19 has affected more than 95,000 people worldwide and killed about 3,200, most near the center of the outbreak in Wuhan. Of about 130 U.S. cases, Washington has reported 39 and California 45, with that state’s first death reported Wednesday.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention says it’s possible to contract the virus by touching a contaminated surface or object, but it’s more commonly spread through close contact (about six feet) with an infected person who is coughing and sneezing.

RESTAURANTS ENDURING CORONAVIRUS SLOWDOWN

Compared to other pockets of the U.S., Tacoma appears to be rather optimistic.

The Los Angeles Times wrote this week that the city’s Chinatown “resembled a ghost town.” In New York, home to the largest Chinese population outside Asia, Chinatown businesses began reporting precipitous drops in sales in early February — although the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in the whole state was reported March 1. A Chinese American restaurant owner in Tampa Bay, Florida, said his business was unjustly suffering. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette found Chinese Americans self-isolating for fear of being the patient zero of southwestern Pennsylvania.

In San Francisco, restaurant owners — some in Chinatown, some not — told The Chronicle that customers were canceling reservations and private parties. The Seattle Times reported that a restaurant owner originally from Wuhan, who features dishes from her hometown, has considered closing because business has been so dismal.

Food personalities and community leaders in Chicago organized a Chinatown crawl to rejuvenate the neighborhood’s usually bustling commerce center.

In Tacoma’s Lincoln District, only the owners of Vien Dong commiserated with these tales.

Kevin Le and Thuy-Linh Nguyen told me they started noticing a slowdown a couple weeks ago, around Valentine’s Day weekend.

“It’s affecting everybody,” said Le, but he believes the public is “smart enough to know what’s going on” and understand that restaurants are in the same boat as every business right now.

“We do our best to wipe the tables and doors and menus, to make sure people are safe,” he said. They keep a large hand sanitizer tub next to the cashier.

Down the street at Tho Tuong BBQ, owner Ngo Phuc sanitized his hands from one of three bottles on the counter three times during a three-minute conversation. He agreed that business has seemed a bit slow these past two weeks, but more so worried about what might happen in a few weeks.

As Sina Kong, who owns Dragon Crawfish with her husband Minh Phan, said: “I can’t predict one month from today.”

For now, she said, “what it is, is what it is.”

Though the Cajun seafood joint isn’t hurting — not yet anyway — she postulated that others in the neighborhood were. Customers often complain about parking, but not in the past couple weeks.

“Nobody is walking that direction,” she said of foot traffic headed west on 38th Street, toward Vien Dong.

At the height of what would typically be a busy Wednesday lunch rush, only a couple tables were occupied at the Tacoma pho restaurant. Vien Dong fills up on Friday and Saturday nights, but Le said the past couple of weekends have been slow.

The Asia Pacific Cultural Center, whose Lunar New Year celebration was well-attended, acknowledged that its community has “fears about this matter.” Executive director Faaluaina Pritchard said misinformation and its “wildfire” spread means that everyone must “stick with the facts” and follow public health guidance, including regular handwashing and staying home if sick.

The APCC joined other immigrant and refugee groups in recognizing “an alarming increase in bias and harassment against our Asian American communities” in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak. Writing on the King County website, the statement urged everyone to avoid stigma against particular groups and to speak out if experienced.

For Tacoma’s Asian-owned businesses, it seems this crisis is just another bump in the business road.

“This is nothing,” Le told me. Having the street outside his restaurant ripped up for an entire year hurt business. The 2003 SARS outbreak hurt business, along with every flu season and even the weather, but, he said, “We survive.”

This story was originally published March 5, 2020 at 5:00 AM.