Good morning. It is Wednesday. Today we bring you an important update on a storm in a green teapot involving an Upper West Side Chinese restaurant that dared to call itself “Shun Lee.”
Shun Lee 98th St — the restaurant that opened earlier this year on the Upper West Side sparking local debates, as well as an in-depth dive in DailyExpertNews about the emotional power a Chinese restaurant name can have in a city of Chinese lovers food – has decided to rebrand. Welcome Dim Sum Bloom!
In a post on NextDoor, the restaurant warned diners about its decision. Under the heading “Important Announcement,” the item said, “We understand there has been some concern about our brand, which has caused inconvenience for everyone. After careful consideration and taking into account your views and suggestions, we have decided to change our brand name.” It continued: “The branding issue was a big challenge for us.”
Here’s the backstory: When a sign announcing a new Chinese restaurant was put up in a vacant storefront at the corner of West 98th Street and Broadway last year, Chinese food lovers on the Upper West Side rejoiced. Family group texts pinged with festive emojis. Community websites tantalized the dumpling-craving taste buds.
The sign read “Shun Lee Cafe” (though the restaurant later renamed itself Shun Lee 98th St), heralding the rise of one of New York’s most celebrated, legendary, and beloved Chinese restaurants. Shun Lee Palace, on East 55th Street, first opened in 1971. Shun Lee West arrived in 1981 on West 65th Street, near Lincoln Center. Both restaurants have attracted celebrities, foodies, and revelers of graduations, birthdays, and b’nai mitzvahs.
New York has long been a foodie city, and more than a century ago, Chinese restaurants were already a staple of the city’s culinary culture among some groups. Many establishments were closed on Sundays. But the Jewish Sabbath ended on Saturday night, and some Jewish people enjoyed eating out on Sunday. Chinese restaurants were there to serve them and help create a lasting bond.
Shun Lee emerged as the posh, delicious, aspirational Chinese restaurant choice for many upwardly mobile Jews in the 1970s and 1980s. Even with the advent of many more upscale Chinese restaurants, Shun Lee has maintained a special status in the city.
As New Yorkers came out of the lockdown days of the pandemic, they were starving in restaurants, and they were especially starving in new restaurants.
So a suburb of Shun Lee? This was certainly the biggest thing to happen to the culinary industrial complex of Upper West Side Chinese restaurants since Empire Szechuan’s Misa Chang came up with the idea of slipping paper menus under apartment doors. (Or at least it would be as seismic as the “Seinfeld” episode, when Jerry, George, and Elaine passed out from hunger as they endlessly waited for a table at a Chinese restaurant.)
But as excited diners made their way to the new Shun Lee, they soon came to an unwelcome realization: It wasn’t much like the other restaurants it was named after. The furnishings were just standard. The menu lacked the signature dishes of its namesake. And the food, while perfectly fine, wasn’t necessarily up to Shun Lee snuff. The thing that most connected the OG Shun Lees and the new Shun Lee – well, besides the names – was the steep prices.
Turns out the new Shun Lee was opened by Sean Li, a guy who worked as an accountant for the other Shun Lees. During the pandemic, when so many shops and restaurants were closing and rents were relatively cheap, he approached Shun Lee’s owner, a Shanghai businessman named Bin Hu, with the idea of expanding into more casual dining.
Hu agreed to collaborate in the venture, but soon decided that Li’s concept for a downscale Shun Lee was not for him. Hu eventually sold his stake to Li, but last July agreed to license the Shun Lee brand name for a one-year term.
Li thought using Shun Lee’s name would be a blessing, but it was a failure: it brought in guests with certain expectations.
As I reported last spring, there was a chain reaction: A man named Danny Cramer who grew up a few blocks away and who loved Shun Lee was excited to try the Shun Lee Ward with his mother. They ordered and were skeptical. The first narration (a realization that deeply disappointed Cramer): There was no “Chicken with three different nuts” dish on the menu. He and his mother made different choices, but were impressed with their meal.
Cramer wanted to call to complain, but when he looked up the number on the Shun Lee website, the West 98th Street location was not listed. So he called Shun Lee on West 65th Street. The person who answered the phone told him that the new Shun Lee copied the name and that the OG consulted Shun Lee lawyers.
Mind you, the implication that OG could sue Shun Lee was untrue – the new Shun Lee had the legal right to use the name – but Cramer only knew what he had been told.
And so he alerted another person he knew from the neighborhood, Claudia Brown. Brown had also had a disappointing experience with Shun Lee 98th St, and she felt a responsibility to publicize what Cramer had told her. She sent a tip to The West Side Rag, an online community newspaper. The subject line was “Shun Lee 98th St – A FAKE.” The Rag published a story.
Again, the restaurant was not a fake, it was a licensee. And to prove the point, Li and his team blew up his license agreement to poster size and posted it in the window of his restaurant.
Then someone saw the giant legal document and warned me. This is how Chinese restaurant journalism is born.
Perhaps it’s also how new restaurants emerge.
In announcing the new name, the Dim Sum Bloom team wrote, “Our original intention was to continue Shun Lee’s Chinese culinary culture in an innovative way. However, we encountered significant obstacles as people see and appreciate Shun Lee as a high-end Chinese restaurant brand, expecting an upscale dining environment.”
So Dim Sum Bloom moved away from Shun Lee’s long shadow. “We remain committed to our original intention and hope to bring more delicious Chinese food to everyone by developing our new brand!”
Weather
Enjoy a mostly sunny day with temperatures reaching the high 80s. At night it is partly cloudy, with temperatures around 70 degrees.
ALTERNATIVE SIDE PARKING
In effect until August 15 (Feast of the Ascension).
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METROPOLITAN Diary
Seen on the f
Dear Diary:
When my husband and I were first dating, I invited him to a “cabaret night” at the new diner some college friends had opened on the Lower East Side.
We were in a comfortably packed F train when a young guy in a letterman jacket recognized my husband-to-be and grinned.
“Dude,” the young man beamed, “you were as great as that detective in ‘The Mask’!”
My future husband smiled and thanked him.
We pulled into Delancey Street-Essex Street station and lost the man in the crowd as people stormed off the train and up the stairs.
We reached the curb above just as the “Don’t Walk” sign began the countdown to “Walk” – a blessed moment to catch our breath.
I squeezed my future husband’s hand.
“I think he was a little young to realize you were the Pickle Man, too,” I said.
