Hard-hit Chinatown businesses look for ways to reinvent and survive

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The narrow front at KK Boutique on East Pender leads into a store filled with traditional and modern Chinese dresses in silk and cotton, some beaded and embroidered, others more casual.

They have been hand-picked and meticulously hung as part of owner Michelle Luo’s plucky bid to keep her more than two-decade old business in Vancouver’s Chinatown going.

“I used to have all my stock (clumped) at the front,” said Luo.

Ben Tam, a volunteer with the Vancouver Chinatown Foundation, who is studying fashion in the U.K., gave her some merchandising suggestions and reorganized the store.

Another foundation volunteer, Kevin Wong, sorted out a mistake and helped Luo reapply after she initially got rejected for a provincial “Launch Online” grant of $7,500 to create an online shop.

“I was able to tell her what she would need beforehand so she could tell her accountant,” said Wong. “I would just troubleshoot for her.”

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Chinatown businesses have been slammed extra hard by the COVID-19 pandemic while also bracing against increasing anti-Asian racism.

“We all know what it’s been like this year,” said Luo. She’s been scared for her safety in and outside the store at times, and exhausted by the stress of drastically reduced business.

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“I have some of my friends who say, ‘why are you still staying there,’” said Luo.

But the area is still home to her, and she feels it’s important for businesses like hers to make it.

Advocates have said entrepreneurs like Luo can face extra hurdles compared to those at larger companies that can more easily gather and submit qualifying information to access government economic recovery funds.

Blanket approaches for bridging language or technology gaps rarely work well.

Instead, “it takes literally knocking on every door. We went around to all the businesses to understand and realize what (each) needs to survive,” said Vancouver Chinatown Foundation chair Carol Lee.

Most of the 17 businesses on the ground floor of Keefer Street’s Chinatown Plaza have shuttered, leaving only a handful such as Ming Fong Fast Food, which serves take-away noodle and rice dishes from a tiny stall. Regulars know to watch for the two- or three- foot high flames that come off its woks, a honed skill that infuses deep flavour into an inexpensive meal.

To spread tighter costs out even more, the foundation helped co-owner Jenny Lun take photos for visual menu displays. It means she can freeze portions instead of keeping food hot all day in warming trays.

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Upstairs, at the Floata Seafood Restaurant’s banquet hall, owner Brian Yu is waiting to hear if he can roll tables onto the third floor of the parkade. Other Metro Vancouver dim sum places have been creating impromptu patio spaces on rooftops and in parking lots.

“We have to keep open and think of a way out,” said Yu.

While federal wage and rent subsidies have helped “a little on the cash flow end,” Yu said he’s still facing a crushing debt of over $300,000 in rent owed to the landlord, which is the City of Vancouver.

The pandemic has been or may be the proverbial nail in the coffin for Chinatown businesses that were already struggling, said June Chow of the Youth Collaborative for Chinatown.

Some that might fare better include ones that had been shifting their business model before COVID-19 hit, she said, citing examples like Kam Wai Dim Sum, which increased sales of frozen food, as well as Treasure Green Tea Shop and Modernize Tailors, which took their sales online.

Others such as Bamboo Village, which sells plants, and Forum Appliances, which sells kitchen appliances, have benefited from people working and cooking more at home, she said.

jlee-young@postmedia.com