After years -- decades -- of complaints from the Asian American community about its racially-charged name, the Philadelphia neighborhood eatery Chink's Steaks finally got around to doing the right thing and finally changed its name to Joe's Steaks & Soda Shop last April. It only took six decades.
The local sandwich institution was first named for its original owner, Sam "Chink" Sherman, who was given the neighborhood childhood nickname by elementary school classmates, circa 1930, because of the "almond" shape of his eyes. Ah, the good old days, when racism was just a part of the schoolyard fun.
Current owner and operator Joe Groh, who took over the business in 1997, says he decided to change the name to do the right thing and get with the times. But in the four months since changing the name, business has dropped dramatically. And he's been slapped with backlash from customers who hate the name change: Good deed punished? Controversial name changed but business drops off.
When Groh, 50, announced his plan to rename the restaurant - he has worked there for 35 years and bought it from Sherman's widow in 1999 - there were two explosions. The first was in the media. The little steakshop never before received so much attention. The second was backlash from some longtime customers who hated the name-change, calling it a surrender to political-correctness. They have a point.Groh tries to do the right thing and effectively gets punished. Customers stop coming. The restaurant gets vandalized. He gets cursed out. If all things except for the name and logo remain, what gives? Theories:
An online petition to keep the old name drew 10,000 signatures. That's a lot of names. Groh was condemned on social media.
In separate incidents in recent months, Groh's rechristened place had "Chink's" painted on the pavement and on his front window by dead-enders with too much time on their hands.
At the time of the name change, Groh was asked "why" and his answers usually flowed along the lines of: it was time, it is 2013, it was never his intent to hurt anyone's feelings.
1) The food was never that good. Racist assholes just wanted an excuse to gather and eat at a restaurant that blatantly operated with a racial slur as its name. Once the name changed, they lost all reason to come.
2) Racist cheesesteaks taste better. Racist assholes have gone elsewhere to get their cheesesteak fix.
3) The food is fine. Racist assholes are just angry that the owner would give a shit about stupid things like racial sensitivity -- an ominous sign that their precious racist asshole neighborhood is changing.
Either way, it comes down to racist assholes, doesn't it?