Kunming restaurant opens branches in New York and Singapore

Since 2014, the rice noodles restaurant "No.9 East Street" from southwest China’s Kunming has expanded its business at home and abroad.

Before their rice noodle business, Liu Jia was a photographer and her brother Xu Chang was a flight attendant. In 2014, the two quit their jobs and returned to their hometown in Yunnan to accompany their 90-year-old grandmother during the last days of her life. At that time, they recalled their sweet memories about home and made a decision to open a restaurant mainly serving Yunnan rice noodles.

"No.9 East Street is the place where grandma's old house locates, and where we grew up," Liu Jia and Xu Chang said, they chose to open their restaurant in the Shulin Street of Kunming as there are many elderly people who remind them of their own grandma. They decorated the restaurant with many unique ornaments, making it a hybrid between ancient Yunnan and European styles. Liu Jia even organized a small art exhibition in the restaurant, with participation of a number of local artists.

Under their careful management, "No.9 East Street" rose to fame, but such influence did not bring them considerable revenue. At their most difficult times, Xu Chang and Liu Jia even thought to give up. Fortunately they managed to persist. Having the wish of sharing Yunnan's delicacies with more people, they opened the first branch of "No.9 East Street" in Singapore. Subsequently, branches in Shanghai, Shenzhen and Suzhou opened.

At the end of 2015, a reporter from the New York Times published an article about the dining experience in "No. 9 East Street". The coverage drew the attention of American readers to this rice noodle restaurant in southwestern China and many of them called Xu Chang, hoping that she could open a branch in the United States.

In March 2018, the American branch of "No.9 East Street" opened in New York. This is a remarkable thing for Xu Chang and Liu Jia. "People’s love is our motivation," said Xu Chang and Liu Jia.

They chose a Chinese American with ancestral home in Kunming as their partner. But to their surprise, most of the customers are from other ethnic groups. "It is a great achievement that the taste of our hometown can be accepted and liked by foreigners," said Xu Chang and Liu Jia. 

(Daguan Weekly, Wang Dan); Editor: Wang Shixue