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How Chop Suey Saved San Francisco's Chinatown [Chinese Food: An All-American Cuisine, Pt. 1] | AJ+

Operator ZoneRestaurant Failures & Lessons/AJ+/8:44

You're running margins so thin you can taste the desperation, but the Chinese immigrants who built America's first restaurant empire knew something about survival you don't learn in business school. They took whatever white America would accept — sweet, saucy, nothing too foreign — and turned racial prejudice into profit centers that lasted generations. Anyone who's ever 86'd half their menu to keep the lights on understands exactly what chop suey really was: not authentic cuisine, but authentic hustle.

— The Chef's Take

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