In mid-February, Stacy Jamieson, the general manager of Tian Fu restaurant in Seattle’s Northgate neighborhood, surveyed his 4,000-square-foot dining room at what was usually the dinner rush time. Every table was empty. Where the popular Szechuan restaurant had been enjoying 45-minute waits on weekends, now it was lucky to serve 10 tables in a whole day.

在二月中旬，斯泰西贾米森，西雅图北门附近天府餐厅的总经理，接受调查的在什么通常是匆匆吃晚饭时他的4000平方英尺的餐厅。 每个桌子都是空的。 周末，这家颇受欢迎的四川餐厅一直在等待45分钟，而现在很幸运，整天可以提供10张桌子。

At the time, Covid-19 was still something many Americans had only heard about: It had killed thousands across Asia, but the U.S. was relatively unscathed. But anti-Asian sentiment, a racist backlash to the developing pandemic, was already bubbling across the country. Americans not only quietly judged Asian Americans but also physically attacked them: In New York, a man assaulted a Chinese woman for wearing a mask; in California’s San Fernando Valley, bullies beat up an Asian American boy and accused him of having the coronavirus.

当时，Covid-19仍然是许多美国人只听说的事情：它杀死了整个亚洲成千上万的人，但美国却毫发无损。 但是， 反亚洲情绪是对这种大流行病的种族主义反弹，已经在全国范围内泛滥。 美国人不仅对亚裔美国人进行了轻描淡写的审判，还对他们进行了肢体攻击：在纽约，一名男子殴打一名戴着面具的中国妇女； 在加利福尼亚州的圣费尔南多谷，恶霸殴打了一个亚裔男孩，并指控他患有冠状病毒。

“Chinese restaurants were perhaps the first place that Covid-19 racism was visible,” said James Boo, the managing producer of podcast Self-Evident, which focuses on Asian American stories. In New York in early March, for example, even before the first reported coronavirus case in the city, business at Chinese restaurants dropped 60%. “Some local restaurant owners even stopped operating,” Boo said, “because their employees were too scared to come to work — not because of Covid-19, but because of the hate incidents that had already started to spread.” By April, unemployment claims filed by people of Asian descent in NYC had increased 6,900%.

“中国餐馆是也许是第一个地方Covid-19种族主义是可见的，”詹姆斯嘘，播客的管理制片人说不言而喻的 ，其重点是亚裔美国人的故事。 例如，3月初在纽约，甚至在该城市首次报道冠状病毒病例之前，中餐馆的生意就下降了60％ 。 “一些当地的餐馆老板甚至停止运营，” Boo说，“因为他们的员工太害怕上班了-不是因为Covid-19，而是因为仇恨事件已经开始蔓延。” 到4月，纽约市亚裔人提出的失业人数增加了6,900％。

As other restaurants across the country saw huge huge upticks in delivery and takeout orders, for Tian Fu, Jamieson says at first there were very few people placing orders. “The immediate impact would be not only the sales and ability to pay rent,” she says, “but also, how do we pay salaries to our employees?”

杰米森说，由于全国其他饭店的送餐和外卖订单都激增 ，对于天府来说，杰米森说起初很少有人下订单。 她说：“直接影响不仅是销售和支付租金的能力，而且还包括我们如何向员工支付薪水？”

Like many other Chinese restaurants during the pandemic, Tian Fu soon was relying almost completely on a delivery app called Chowbus. The app works similarly to Grubhub or Seamless: It allows users to place orders at restaurants and sends gig workers to deliver them, charging restaurants up to a 20% commission. But unlike other delivery apps, Chowbus was initially designed specifically with Asian restaurants in mind. Founder and CEO Linxin Wen created the app in 2016, after realizing that none of the other delivery apps focused on Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, and other Asian cuisines, and it has since carved out a niche offering food that often isn’t available on Uber Eats or Seamless. It’s had a major impact on Asian restaurants, creating an entire ecosystem and a feeling of support that mainstream apps haven’t.

与大流行期间的许多其他中国餐馆一样，天府很快就几乎完全依赖名为Chowbus的交付应用程序。 该应用程序的工作方式与Grubhub或Seamless相似：它允许用户在餐厅下订单，并派专职工作人员交付，向餐厅收取高达20％的佣金。 但是与其他交付应用程序不同，Chowbus最初是专门为亚洲餐馆而设计的。 创始人兼首席执行官温琳欣(Linxin Wen)意识到没有其他交付应用程序专注于泰国，越南，中国和其他亚洲美食后，于2016年创建了该应用程序，此后便立足了利基市场，提供了通常无法提供的食品优步吃或无缝。 它对亚洲餐厅产生了重大影响，创造了一个完整的生态系统，并提供了主流应用程序所没有的支持感。

I first noticed it while eating in a favorite food mall in Flushing, one of New York City’s Chinatowns: Every single stall had a Chowbus sticker on it. (Other common apps are Fantuan and Hungry Panda, which are both in Mandarin — no English in sight.) Not just any restaurant can join Chowbus, though more than 3,000 have: An employee must taste-test the cuisine first to make sure it’s high quality and authentic. Restaurant owners and employees are able to communicate with Chowbus employees in both English and Mandarin, a plus for those whose first language may not be English. And most of Chowbus’s customers are also Chinese. A spokesperson for the app says while it doesn’t collect data on race ethnicity, it does “guess if users are Chinese or American Chinese based on their last name, and [estimates that] the ratio of Chinese to non-Chinese is 7:3.”

我在纽约唐人街之一的法拉盛最喜欢的美食广场进餐时第一次注意到它：每个摊位上都贴有Chowbus贴纸。 (其他常见的应用程序是Fantuan和Hungry Panda，它们都是中文的-看不见英语。)尽管有3,000多家餐厅，但不是任何一家餐厅都可以加入Chowbus：员工必须首先品尝菜以确保其高品质质量和正宗。 餐馆老板和员工可以用英语和普通话与Chowbus员工交流，这对于母语不是英语的人来说是一个加分。 而且，Chowbus的大多数客户也是中国人。 该应用程序的发言人表示，虽然它不收集种族信息，但会“根据用户的姓氏猜测用户是中国人还是美国华人，并且[估计]中文与非中文的比例为7： 3.”

“Chinese restaurants were perhaps the first place that Covid-19 racism was visible.”

“中国餐馆也许是Covid-19种族主义最早出现的地方。”

Before Covid-19 hit Seattle, Tian Fu used only Chowbus to accept orders outside of dine-in, and only sparingly. “For us to do takeout or deliveries, it would actually slow down our kitchen,” Jamieson explained. When the restaurant closed its dining room, the app became a lifeline. Tian Fu already had name recognition and a following on the app: Chinese Amazon employees at the nearby office had been ordering their lunches from Tian Fu for a while, “because they tasted food that reminds them of home,” Jamieson said. “Since Covid-19, those employees continue to order through Chowbus after their offices were shut down.”

在Covid-19到达西雅图之前，天府仅使用Chowbus接受就餐以外的订单，而且很少使用。 “对我们来说，外卖或送货实际上会减慢我们的厨房速度，”杰米森解释说。 当餐厅关闭餐厅时，该应用程序成为了生命线。 天府已经在应用程序上有了名字识别和以下内容：附近办公室的中国亚马逊员工已经有一段时间从天府订购午餐了，“因为他们品尝的食物让他们想起了家，”杰米森说。 “自Covid-19起，这些员工在办公室关闭后继续通过Chowbus订购。”

Where delivery used to be a nuisance and barely 20% of Tian Fu’s business, now Jamieson said it makes up 80%, with 70% coming from Chowbus and the rest from Fantuan, another Asian food delivery app, and Grubhub.

Jamieson表示，以前送货是令人讨厌的事情，仅占天府业务的20％，现在占80％，其中70％来自Chowbus，其余来自另一家亚洲食品送货应用程序Fantuan，以及Grubhub。

According to Chowbus, there’s been an 80% increase in delivery revenue from January to May for most of its restaurants. In early March — as Chinatowns across the country essentially became ghost towns — Chowbus expanded its delivery radius in each of the 20 cities in which it operates. It has also hired more than 40 additional customer services representatives to handle inquiries about cancellation and refunds.

根据Chowbus的说法，从1月到5月，大多数餐厅的送货收入增长了80％。 3月初-全国各地的唐人街基本上变成了鬼城 -Chowbus在其运营的20个城市中的每一个扩大了送货范围。 它还聘请了40多名客户服务代表来处理有关取消和退款的查询。

Specialty stores common in the Asian community, like dumpling shops and bubble tea cafes, in particular have relied on Chowbus’s bundling feature — designed with them in mind — which allows a customer to order items from multiple restaurants for one delivery.

亚洲社区中常见的专卖店，例如饺子店和泡泡茶咖啡馆，尤其是依靠Chowbus的捆绑功能(专为他们而设计)，该功能使客户可以从多家餐馆订购商品以便一次送货。

Jack Shi, the owner of Tsaocaa, a bubble tea cafe in Chicago, said his beverages are most often bundled with other popular Chinatown restaurants like Golden Bull and Szechwan JMC. “Both restaurants have high-volume orders,” he said. “By bundling with them, our sales are going up too.” During the pandemic, his shop’s sales have increased more than 30%, with Chowbus alone generating 40%.

芝加哥泡泡茶咖啡馆Tsaocaa的所有者杰克·施(Jack Shi)说，他的饮料通常与其他受欢迎的唐人街餐厅捆绑在一起，如金牛市和Szechwan JMC。 他说：“两家餐厅都有大量订单。” “通过与他们捆绑销售，我们的销售额也将上升。” 在大流行期间，他的商店的销售额增长了30％以上，仅Chowbus的销售额就增长了40％。

Chowbus’s focus on Asian restaurants does not necessarily solve common criticisms of delivery apps. As stay-at-home orders have increased all types of restaurants’ dependence on delivery apps, their business models have come under scrutiny for high commission fees, with several cities setting maximum fees apps can charge restaurants at between 15% and 40%. Delivery apps have also come under fire for classifying their couriers as independent contractors, which means they aren’t covered by minimum wage laws, workers compensation insurance, and other workplace protections. Restaurant owners who use Chowbus do, however, say that the approach is more community-oriented than they’ve experienced with apps aimed at a broader audience.

Chowbus对亚洲餐馆的关注并不一定能解决对交付应用程序的普遍批评。 随着全民下班订单增加了所有类型的餐厅对交付应用程序的依赖，其商业模式已受到高佣金收费的审查， 一些城市设定了最高收费，应用程序可以向餐厅收取 15％至40％的费用。 送货应用也因将快递员归类为独立承包商而受到抨击，这意味着它们不受最低工资法，工人补偿保险和其他工作场所保护的保护。 但是，使用Chowbus的餐馆业主表示，这种方法比面向更广泛受众的应用程序所经历的更加面向社区。

Chowbus’s commission is all inclusive, whereas Grubhub, for example, has said it charges around the same amount for commission but actually bakes in all sorts of extra fees. Some restaurants perceive Chowbus to be more responsive. Jamieson said Uber Eats, for example, has never returned calls or emails, whereas Chowbus’ “guest and merchant services are always available.” Chowbus also sends photographers to all of the restaurants on the app who want them, which helps close the gap between mom-and-pop restaurants and big-budget locales that can afford to hire professional PR firms, photographers, and so on.

Chowbus的佣金包罗万象，而例如格鲁布(Grubhub)表示，它收取的佣金大致相同，但实际上要收取各种额外费用 。 一些餐厅认为Chowbus的响应速度更快。 Jamieson说，例如，Uber Eats从未回电话或电子邮件，而Chowbus的“来宾和商户服务始终可用。” Chowbus还会将摄影师发送到应用程序上想要他们的所有餐厅，这有助于缩小妈妈和流行餐厅与有能力雇用专业PR公司，摄影师等的大笔预算地区之间的差距 。

For some restaurants, the app has played a crucial role in survival. One Szechuan Cuisine in Chicago, for example, has only five tables. During the pandemic, its revenue from Chowbus has increased 360%.

对于某些餐馆，该应用程序在生存中发挥了至关重要的作用。 例如，芝加哥的一个四川菜只有五张桌子。 在大流行期间，其来自Chowbus的收入增长了360％。

Jamieson said like many restaurants, Tian Fu has had to redo its menu to accommodate takeout orders. Gone is the popular boiled fish, which didn’t travel well. It’s been replaced with beef in hot and sour broth (thin slices of beef in a special pumpkin broth) and yummy spare ribs (a half rack of spare ribs sautéed with garlic, scallion, and chilies).

杰米森说，像许多餐馆一样，天府不得不重做菜单以容纳外卖订单。 流行的水煮鱼已经运走了，运势不好。 它已由酸辣汤中的牛肉(在特殊的南瓜汤中切成薄片的牛肉)和美味的排骨(用大蒜，葱段和辣椒炒成的半排排骨)代替。

Though delivery is still the majority of Tian Fu’s business, diners are starting to sit down at tables again. Has Jamieson’s job gone back to normal?

尽管送货仍然是天府的主要业务，但食客们开始再次坐在餐桌旁。 Jamieson的工作恢复正常了吗？

“No,” she laughed. “I’m now the general manager slash kitchen manager slash cook slash delivery driver.” Oh, that’s right: In this new era, she’s started driving for Chowbus too.

“不，”她笑了。 “我现在是总经理slash厨房经理slash cook slash送货司机。” 哦，是的：在这个新时代，她也开始为Chowbus开车。