The Dragon Wall Chinese Buffet has been an Evanston tradition since 1997. The current owners, Don and Lin Li, immigrated from Fuzhou, China and bought it from relatives in 2000.
Fuzhou, located on the Taiwan Strait, is where the tradition of the Dragon Wall begins. Go into any Chinese buffet in America and ask the owners about their city of birth. Four out of five will likely be from Fuzhou. Families from there call America mei guo (the Beautiful Country). Many have come to raise their families here with a Chinese buffet as the family business.
The Li family has been an integral part of our Evanston community for more than two decades. They have fed us, raised their kids with ours, shopped in area stores, and helped build our community in countless ways. All this has been done in their typically quiet and unassuming way. If you haven’t gone out of your way to meet them, you might never have known their names. Don and Lin think nothing of working ten hours a day, seven days a week.
It is precisely this quiet industriousness that motivates me to tell their story. When the great shut-down of 2020 hit, the restaurant business was hit hard. We are now on the 11th continuation of a Statewide Public Health Order (#1) that has restricted businesses like the Dragon Wall even more severely than the rest. “No self-serve food service or buffet options shall be available…”
For now, and for the foreseeable future, self-serve restaurants are still unable to be self-serve restaurants. What does such an order do to a family whose only means of support is the self-serve restaurant business? With this question in mind, I went to the Dragon Wall and introduced myself.
I was surprised to find that they were open for business. This is a testament to their ingenuity and grit. Foreseeing that strictures on self-serve restaurants would continue long after other restaurants were allowed to open, the Dragon Wall changed its business model from self-serve to fast food.
They built Plexiglas dividers to separate diners from the food bar and spaced their tables to accommodate social distancing. This positioned then to be ready when the modifications of the May 15th Public Health Order went into effect.
After two months of complete shut-down, they reopened serving express Chinese food for takeout or dine in. For a set price, customers can receive a bed of fried rice or lo mein. Then, they can select two different entrees and an appetizer. For an additional dollar, they can add soup and a drink.
Upon reopening, they were serving only half the customers that they had serviced before the shutdown, but at least they were able to put food on the table. Sadly, they were forced to lay off their employee. This, too, was the common lot of businesses far and wide. But now that they have been opened for two and a half months, their customer base is slowly rising.
Despite the neon sign welcoming diners, there is still a substantial number of people who are unaware that many buffets have retooled their business model to enable reopening. But, open they are, and as terrific as ever.
While decision-makers continue to receive full salary and benefits, families like the Lis are affected by those decisions in an immediate way. Through creative thinking and hard work, they have not only found a way to keep body and soul together, but also to continue to serve the Evanston community as restaurateurs and neighbors.
No doubt, there are many thousands of family-owned businesses throughout the state and the nation that share a similar story. I wanted to write about the Li family to help us remember them all. Calls to lift unnecessary restrictions at the earliest moment feasible are not about restoring some faceless capitalistic economy. They are about people.
The word “economy” comes from the Greek word for managing a household. It is about families like the Li’s. It is about our neighbors, friends, school mates and fellow immigrants. To care about their needs and challenges is a part of being human.
I asked Don if there was anything special that he wanted the community to know. He was eager to tell me. With no worries at all for the future, he said, “No matter what happens next, we appreciate that the community has helped us to raise our kids in a peaceful life.”
The appreciation is mutual. Who knew that eating great Chinese food was anything more than a valued dining experience? Supporting a good family and a community partner simply came in the bargain. That is how the economy is supposed to work.
Also published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle, September 11, 2020.
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