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In the late 1970s,I began taking martial arts lessons.My sensei (instructor ) was also the owner of a Chinese restaurant. Pity the Poor Restaurateur Keath Liu owns and operates the China Gourmet restaurant onWest 72nd Street in Manhattan.The business is his livelihood. Just before closing , a man and woman come in and order sesame chicken with lemon sauce.When the food is 90 percent eaten, the man calls Liu over. “Look at this,” he says, holding aloft a light brown hair.“This was in our food.” “I’m sorry,” Liu answers.“Would you like something else from the kitchen?” “I’m not hungry anymore.That hair ruined my appetite.Your kitchen must be filthy.” Liu tries to explain that all of his employees are Chinese with black hair, but the woman interrupts.“We’re not paying. If you don’t like it, call the police.” The police say they are too busy to come. Can’t the restaurant handle its own problems? “No problem,” answers Liu, a fourth-degree black belt martial arts expert.“I’ll use karate.” Four cops arrive very quickly,but are able to enforce only partial payment . “You’re a Chinese Jew,” the woman snaps on her way out.The woman has light brown hair. Pity the poor restaurant owner! His patrons worry about the check. He has problems galore; many of them caused by his customers. “What a life,” moans Liu.“I pay for rent, kitchen help, insurance, and food.A white tablecloth costs thirty-five cents to launder.I sell a complete dinner for five dollars, and still I get complaints. One woman poured soy sauce all over her ice cream. She thought it was chocolate syrup. It was very funny, except I had to give her a second dessert.Another customer asked for a glass of water with ice so he could take some ‘medicine.’ I paid a fortune for my liquor license. I can’t do business like that.” 238 THOMAS HAUSER There are eight Chinese restaurants within a few blocks of China Gourmet, so Liu struggles to keep his customers happy. It’s not easy. One woman went to the ladies’room to gargle and came out to report that her false teeth had fallen into the toilet. Before Liu could retrieve them, a second customer flushed the toilet, clogging the pipes and flooding the floor. A plumber had to be called to repair the damage.The first woman threatened to sue for loss of her false teeth. Liu wonders,“Why can’t she gargle in the sink like everyone else?” Customers! A restaurateur can’t do business without them, but they are the bane of his existence. Customers steal ashtrays, cloth napkins, and silverware.They break dishes, glassware, and chairs.They sneak out without paying and pocket tips left by other patrons. “You want to know about customers?” asks Michael O’Neal, part owner of the Ginger Man, a popular Manhattan restaurant.“How long can you listen? We’re less than a block from Lincoln Center.That means half of our customers have concert tickets, and they all want to be served in two minutes. Purse snatchers are another headache.They come in with a coat on the arm, walk to the cigarette machine, and amble back down the aisle. If they order, it’s always the cheapest thing on the menu.All we can do is watch them until they grab something.Then there are the nuts. We had a flasher come in one night with nothing on but a raincoat.” O’Neal runs a hand across the back of his head.“Come to think of it, he wasn’t much of a problem. I just said,‘Sir, you’re not properly dressed,’ and he left.” Ask any restaurant owner,and the litany of complaints continues.Kids loosen the tops on salt shakers so the salt will cascade out onto the next person’s dinner. Raucous customers disturb other patrons, who then leave without eating. Indeed, after listening to the plaintive cries of one restaurateur after another, it would appear as though the only way a restaurant can survive its customers is by being a culinary version of General Motors or IBM. Tavern on the Green stands just east of the Ginger Man on the fringe of Central Park.It has four hundred employees,accommodates eight hundred customers simultaneously, and serves 600,000 meals a year. Its operation is supervised with sleek corporate-like precision by its...

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