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Chinese dining products to appear here.
In the 19th century, Chinese restaurateurs developed American Chinese cuisine when they modified their food for American tastes. First catering to railroad workers, they opened restaurants in towns where Chinese food was completely unknown. These restaurant workers adapted to using local ingredients and catered to their customer's tastes. Dishes on the menu were often given numbers, and often a roll and butter was offered on the side.
In the process, chefs would invent numerous dishes such as chop suey. As a result, they developed a style of Chinese food not found in China. Restaurants (along with Chinese laundries which have since nearly vanished) provided an ethnic niche for small businesses at a time when Chinese were often excluded from most jobs in the wage economy by discrimination or lack of language fluency.
For most of those who run such restaurants, wages tend to be low, and hours long as much of the labor is provided by immigrants or family members, but part of the attraction of Chinese restaurants is the quality and low cost of the food. In modern times, some Asian professionals invest their savings into running restaurants.
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