I’m very interested in how they work. So much unique stuff: the large menus, the relative uniformity across vast geographies without franchises, the very quick food at very cheap prices. Unfortunately it seems like a very insular community, being mostly family-run by recent immigrants.
Has anyone written a good book on this? I’m thinking something like Kitchen Confidential but with a different focus.
The basic idea is that you have only a few basic ingredients, which you can combine in many different ways. So you don’t have Sweet and Sour Pork and Lemon Chicken pre-prepared; rather, you have a big pan of pork, and a big pan of chicken, and pans of your various sauces, and of vegetables, and you just mix and match whatever the customer orders.
There is a block in Chinatown, N.Y. City, that has the following number of walk in restaurants, 7,8,7,9. Really. A comedian whose name escapes me said that they all share the same downstairs kitchen. Funny, but not far fetched. 