Chinatown's late-night feasts fading away
By Jenn Abelson, Globe Staff | June 13, 2006
Chinatown is the one place in Boston where you're supposed to be able to eat in the middle of the night.
But that's less and less true of this night-owl neighborhood. One by one, Chinatown restaurants known for predawn servings of lo mein and pork dumplings are shutting early, well before their coveted 4 a.m. licenses require them to close. Could Boston's early-to-bed reputation finally be catching up with the city's last bastion of late-night haunts?
``There's nobody here! Nobody!" grumbled Henry Szeto, owner of Moon Villa, at 3 a.m. on a recent Thursday. He sat with his arms crossed in the back of the restaurant, scowling at the room, where just three of 28 tables were filled.
Around the corner, at Imperial Seafood on Beach Street, it was so quiet you could hear the purring from tanks filled with shrimp, lobsters, and soft shell crabs.
Over the past two years, late-night stalwarts like Chau Chow City, East Ocean City, and Ginza have trimmed their hours, with some closing as early as 11 p.m. When Korea House shuts its doors altogether this month, only four out of the 10 Chinatown restaurants licensed to stay open to 4 a.m. will keep to that schedule every day.
``It's pathetic," Snow Conant, 25, said recently as she polished off some bitter melon with chicken and spicy eggplant around 2:45 a.m. at Moon Villa. ``I'm pretty resourceful at finding places that will support my lifestyle. But here, it's like `Honey go to bed!' "
Chinatown's reputation as an after-hours hangout dates back to the 1940s and 1950s, when its restaurants drew business from lingering theater-goers, actors, and production hands from the nearby -- and thriving -- Theater District, said Stephanie Fan , co-president of the Chinese Historical Society of New England.
In a city where about three dozen restaurants are licensed to stay open at least until 4 a.m. (including fast-food chains like Dunkin' Donuts), Chinatown still is the neighborhood with the highest concentration. Restaurant owners blame the slowdown on crime, the sagging economy, and the Big Dig, which has endlessly rerouted drivers and blocked off street after street.
Others say Chinatown is facing fierce competition from suburban Asian restaurants. Plus, some new Boston restaurants are serving food past midnight, including Stella and Toro in the South End and Foundation Lounge at the Hotel Commonwealth in Kenmore Square.
Daniel F. Pokaski , chairman of the Boston Licensing Board, which approves restaurant hours, notes that Boston residents are older, a fact that diminishes the demand for wee-hours nibbling. Indeed, the 2000 census showed a 20 percent jump in adults ages 35 to 54, compared to 1990, and a 7 percent drop in those ages 20 to 34.
``The transformation of the Back Bay into million-dollar condos housing empty nesters -- well, there's less call for them to go out at 4 a.m. and get some steak and eggs," Pokaski said.
Early-to-bed isn't necessarily a bad thing, according to the licensing board, which denies about 90 percent of requests from restaurants to stay open past 2 a.m.
``We want people to come into the city of Boston and enjoy themselves. And when the club they're at or bar they're at closes, we want them to go home," Pokaski said.
It's certainly a boisterous bunch that makes up the overnight scene in Chinatown. By 3:15 a.m. on a recent Thursday, with the air larded with the smells of trash and seafood, a group of post-work, post-bar diners loudly complained about greasy crab rangoons at Moon Villa. Nearby at Korea House, one diner began swinging a golf club inside the restaurant.
Michael Schlow, chef and co-owner of Radius, said he believes there's a backlash against Chinatown because restaurant owners there in recent years have closed earlier than advertised, frustrating late-night diners like himself.
``You're hungry, it's late, and to go down to Chinatown and find these places closed once or twice, well, then you never go back," Schlow said. ``As much as we crave Asian cuisine at that hour, there's no guarantees that they're open. So I stay at my restaurant, or go to Stella in the South End."
Evan Deluty , owner of Stella, said Chinatown's cutbacks gave him the incentive to serve food until 1:30 a.m. every day at the Italian bistro he opened last year.
``You can always add hours, but you can't take them away," Deluty said. ``It's a sign of weakness when these guys are closing early."
Edward Leung, president of the Chinatown Business Association and owner of East Ocean City, Imperial Seafood, and several other restaurants, wishes it were different. He began shutting Imperial Seafood at midnight during the week -- four hours earlier than usual -- because there were so few customers. Recently, he started experimenting with a 3 a.m. closing to see if business would improve with later hours. That hasn't happened.
``No one wants to open late anymore," Leung said. ``The neighborhood is empty."
For years, late hours provided many restaurants enough business that they didn't need to think about expanding outside of Chinatown. It required only a second shift of workers, and for owners like Moon Villa's Szeto ``it's something we always did, and we just didn't think twice."
But these days, Szeto, who works most nights from 7 p.m. until 4 a.m., said it's not worth it. He plans to retire soon.
As rents increase and the number of diners dwindles, many of the remaining businesses see their futures outside of Chinatown, said Clayton Luu , who oversees Chau Chow City on Essex Street and last month opened a second location in Dorchester. Between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m. on an average weekday, the Chinatown shop usually serves about 20 diners at most, one manager said. The restaurant seats up to 180 people.
So now Chinatown, once the beacon of late-night noshes, is gaining a reputation for something new: being an easy place to find a parking spot after midnight.
