It also leaves the Chinatown community without a large banquet hall. After dim sum, they’d often go shopping in Chinatown’s independently run stores. Pre-pandemic, the restaurant brought hundreds of people to the neighborhood on the weekends. The closure of Jing Fong’s dining room is a tough break for other Chinatown businesses. a lot of its money from private events, banquets held by family associations and nonprofit organizations, and large weddings. It definitely could not survive with 25% capacity for indoor dining. Jing Fong, with a dining room capacity of 800, is dependent on high volume. Lam said sales were down at Jing Fong 85% from a year ago, amounting of losses as high as $6 million.ĭue to racist and xenophobic attacks and rhetoric, foot traffic in Chinatown plummeted in February of last year. Jing Fong’s manager Truman Lam said in a statement, “With our drastic decline in sales and mounting losses sustained over the course of a year, we needed to make the tough call to close our indoor dining space and redirect our resources in hopes to continue our operations.” As Eater noted, Jing Fong has been a Chinatown institution since 1978 and has operated from its current location since 1992. We will keep you all updated as we figure out the next chapter for us. Jing Fong Upper West Side will not be affected by this closure and will continue its normal operations. This is not the end for us, here at Chinatown, as we are actively looking for a new location to move into as soon as possible. We will continue to post memories shared with us on our stories. If you do not feel comfortable dining with us yet, no worries at all. We will continue to operate from the 2nd floor kitchen for our outside patio, take-out, and delivery until further notice. Please, join us safely for one last meal inside as we look back on all the memories we had here together. We are heartbroken to announce that our Chinatown location at 20 Elizabeth Street, will be permanently closing its indoor dining operation on Maat 8:00pm. Here’s the message Jing Fong posted on its social media:įirst and foremost, THANK YOU everyone for the endless support this past year, it truly means a lot to us and we really appreciate each and every one of you all, from the bottom of our hearts. The owners say they’re looking for a new space in Chinatown. Indoor service will end March 7 at 8 p.m.

The restaurant will keep its second floor kitchen going “until further notice” to support delivery, takeout and dining on its outdoor balcony. Jing Fong, the neighborhood’s largest restaurant by far, announced the closure of its dining room at 20 Elizabeth St. It’s probably the toughest blow for Chinatown business since the start of the pandemic.

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