Jolly Chan's Kitchen 1069 1st Ave Marketing Lessons from my Father

425 E 58th St...........a familiar address to me as I took so many take out orders from this address as a teenager at my dad's take out....Jolly Chan's Chinese Kitchen. [BTW...How ironic years later that I would become a Chan.]

Last week I was invited to a cocktail party at 425 E 58th. I got out of the cab practically across the street from Jolly Chan's and slowly walked by at least 3 times to have a look inside......updated, but same skinny lay out as I remembered. Same bikes outside with tired delivery men sitting at the table by the door. smile, smile, smile.

My dad owned Jolly Chan's approximately 1975-1985, but he doesn't remember what years (I asked him a few days ago), so neither do I. I do remember what he taught me. Here are my cherished marketing lessons from my dad, Bob Tsang.

1. LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION

My fondest memories are of us 3 kids piling in to dad's station wagon on Saturday mornings, looking for "the next".. The next location..... the next take-out. My mom liked to sleep late so we would drive around Manhattan without her, just searching for "FOR RENT" signs. Pen and paper in hand, we scouted out locations for our next take-out. Was it in a busy residential area? Was it near a subway station? What kind of neighborhood was it, safe? The joy of scribbling down that number and listening to dad make the call afterwards.....We wanted him to choose the locations we liked best. The ones near ice cream parlors or beautiful brownstones... "Dad, this one is good, dad, look, this one is good..." I wanted him to choose the ones I found. We only had take-outs because restaurants had too much over head.

2. HOW'S BUSINESS TODAY?
I can't walk in to a restaurant today without counting the number of occupied tables & waiters. Half full? Half empty? Mo sang yee (no business). Is it dirty or is it clean? If there are few customers, is the food fresh?

3. BUILD A RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR CUSTOMERS
Duh. But I get my business personality from my father. Enough said. Dad had an annual Chinese New Year party for all his customers, and then workers. He didn't have to do it, but did. No one walked out without a smile and a full fat stomach.

4. ITS ALL IN A NAME
What a stupid name "Jolly Chan's" is & when I pressed dad on this he said, "people will remember it, you have to have a name that people will recognize". Sound familiar?

COMPETITION
We'd walk around a 5 block radius, swipe the take-out menu's and go home and dissect them for fun. We'd circle what they had, that we didn't have. We'd go right up to the window and stare inside to see how many full/empty tables they had and how many waiters they had idling around.

We did have a full-on restaurant on Mott Street called Mon Sing for many years. I remember racing up and down with my brother on Saturday mornings, setting tables with big Chinese soup spoons, chopsticks, forks and knives, all in a certain order. I remember standing at the soda machine for hours mixing Coke, Orange, 7-Up for a great taste. I remember my sister yelling at the customers for telling her she spoke such good English. (What did they expect from a Yale grad, yeah you tell em) And I remember a time when an angry customer called and demanded their $ back.........and my father actually instructed the delivery guy to go back and give the $ back, tip and all, he did. Hhhhmmm, not sure he would think that today --- go to hell would be more appropriate.

My father was also a copy writer. He wrote a saying in his menu, which we saw copied many times in other restaurant menu's, "Sorry, no dessert, besides, its fattening".

So many memories but how ironic that I went to a fancy cocktail party in a building that I took orders from for so many Sunday's of my life.........The view from this woman's apt was beautiful, I could look down and see the city and Jolly Chan's from a different point of view. Never forgetting where I come from and the important marketing lessons my father taught me.