Located in Bartow, Florida, Hong Kong Chinese Restaurant does the most business during hurricanes. Connie Wu recalls her parents’ restaurant was still taking orders during Hurricane Irma in 2017, even as the lights went out and the army rolled up to their door. “They had to order food,” Wu says. But Christmas was always a close second. “Other than the hurricanes, Christmas would be the busiest.”
Wu, now a junior at New York University, spent much of her childhood under a faded grid of stock photos depicting the dishes offered on the menu. Her parents have owned Hong Kong Chinese Restaurant since 2002; when she didn’t have school, she’d work rigorous 12-hour shifts — from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. — taking orders from behind the restaurant’s green marble countertop or working in the kitchen. On Christmas, once the lunch rush started, business wouldn’t slow down until late into the evening. The restaurant usually stayed open past its normal operating hours to accommodate the extra orders, making about three times the revenue it would normally make on other (non-hurricane) days. Wu recalls not being able to eat lunch until 4 p.m. on Christmas Day, “but we usually never finish. We just don’t have time to eat lunch,” she says.
On Christmas, the restaurant made about three times the revenue it would normally make on other (non-hurricane) days. …