Not carte blanche, just a significant number of people. I thought that was obvious, but I suppose I could have been clearer.
Heck, why would you even want to name your business something that a significant number of people think is offensive? Even if you disagree with them, why offend potential customers? If you insist on such a name on some principle of free speech and not being “woke” then you’re not a very good business person. (Note that I’m not accusing this man of this. From the article I do believe that he never intended offense to anyone.)
I’d say it’s more a general thing. Ethnic restaurants owned by the ethnicity in question are assumed to be more “authentic” and thus better. That just seems to be a common American belief, really.
As for what he could call it, I already gave an example. But, honestly, anything other than a name that makes him sound Chinese would fit. It’s not like “Benny” on its own sounds Chinese.
And as for PF Chang: According to Wikipedia, the Chang portion comes from its co-founder Philip Chiang, while the P.F. part comes from co-founder Paul Flemming. I suspect Mr. Chiang is Chinese.
The problem, IMHO, isn’t a white person owning a Chinese restaurant, it’s the deliberate attempt to put out a Fresh-off-the-boat sort of ching-chong name. (For the record, I object to Chinese owners themselves using such store names, too, but that may be a separate debate.)
It would be like a non-Italian person starting a restaurant called The Guidos or something.
I am not sure where this is coming from. The article in the OP quotes 2-3 people, and goes on to say:
Public outcry about Benny Chows in Houston in the two weeks since it’s been announced has been quiet to nonexistent. Wong says conversations among the local AAPI community have mostly been happening behind closed doors, but he also thinks Houstonians often give people the benefit of the doubt. “Everyone is holding off until they can hear more about the concept,” he says.
Maybe the name is problematic, maybe it’s not. I am sure as a restaurant owner there’s always going to be someone that has a problem with what you are doing, but in this case it seems like there is little public concern except for the few people the reporter went searching for. IMHO you’d have to be trying to be offended here - I looked for more news stories about this but only the one in the OP was found. I’ll wait to see if the AAPI community in Houston are more outraged over this than the 3 people the reporter found.
I have several issues with the article linked in the OP, because the co-founder of the AAPI support group apparently didn’t get the whole story. She says in the article, “When I saw these headlines, it just felt like a step backwards.” I’d have more respect for her if she, you know, actually talked to the guy about it all and came to an understanding, or maybe even convinced him to change the name.
Another person quoted takes offense at the word “elevated”: "If Benny Chows is “elevated,” Deleon asks: “What does that say about Fung’s Kitchen? What does that say about Hai Cang?..” This guy runs a place called Underground Creamery. Is it really underground? Maybe he’s playing with words he shouldn’t be playing with.
I’m liberal, but I honestly think people are sometimes going too far with this sort of thing–they’re missing the bigger picture. Unless it’s an obviously offensive name (and “Chows” to me isn’t), then I think this is much ado about nothing. (Racism is real, the US was built on it, and we need to do what we can to change it. And restaurant names matter. I just think the people quoted in the article are wrong.)
The bigger picture to me is worker exploitation. A quick search brought up these wonderful people:
It’s Houston, not California. About a quarter of the population was not born in the country.
Hate to break it to folks, but a lot of immigrants just kind of take racism for granted and treat it as business as usual. As long as they can keep living their lives with some semblance of normalcy, they aren’t going to rock the boat over something like this. Their reaction isn’t going to be “Racism in the US? Shock!”. Their reaction is going to be “Well, of course there’s racism here. What’s that got to do with the price of eggs?”
Especially since the restaurant is not really marketed towards them and also nowhere geographically near where they live and eat (as I mentioned above, several miles from both the old and new Chinatowns). Their kids may raise a bigger stink someday. Maybe. Or just keep plugging away expecting things may (or may not) be better a few decades or generations later, which they generally have.
We have a nearly-hundred year old restaurant in my town called Mee Hing Low that I’ve always thought was a pun. TIL, that Mee Hing Low actually means something like “sanitary noodle place”.
No comment yet on the s at the end of Chows? Even as someone whose grammar is far from perfect, it looks wrong. If the name is supposed to imply that the owner is someone named Benny Chow, they should add an apostrophe and make it Benny Chow’s. If it’s supposed to mean that the chows being served are prepared by Benny, then make it Benny’s Chows. The only way it makes sense is if Benny is hungry and chowing on something. Benny (subject) chows (verb) with the rest left off. Am I missing a more obvious interpretation?
ETA. Count me in with those who don’t see the name as racist.
If there has been outrage, then I am quite surprised by that.
Here in Bristol, UK there are many restaurants with punny, vaguely ethnic names.
And when you go in, the people front of house often aren’t the same ethnicity as the restaurant (the chefs may be, but often you don’t get to see them). No-one cares.
The only signage I’ve ever noticed was when a community center called “Kumon” was placed next to a charity called “F.A.C.E.” Seriously. Although they are in the “wrong” order to read left-to-right
Anyway, yeah, there are potentially offensive names, but Benny Chows doesn’t register for me.
I’m far more irritated by ‘elevated’ than Chow.
‘elevated’ as a descriptor of ethnic cuisine cooked by white men has been disfavored for quite a while now.
I also first thought it was a play on Bunny Chow, which I believe is South African, and would have been more clever.
If it is a verb in English, in third-person singular you need the s.
Whether he or the restaurant critic said it was ‘elevated’, it’s clearly puffery anyway. But why can’t Texan cuisine, or Texan-Chinese cuisine, be “elevated” in theory, or made into something non-traditional?
Right. But if it’s functioning as a verb, that makes Benny Chows a truncated sentence, which looks really strange to use as the name of of a restaurant. It would be like naming a restaurant Benny Eats. Benny’s Eats looks more correct. At least it does to me.
“‘Authentic’ ethnic food is found at cheap hole-in-the-wall joints in ghettos and scary enclaves. It’s tasty but you don’t want to go there unless you’re an adventurous, risk-taking super-foodie. Be grateful to ‘our’ professional chefs for making the cuisine safe and accessible for the normies.”
