From ringing up customers at the front to flipping eggs in the kitchen, senior Daniel Hong’s weekends at his parents’ cafe, Lemon Tree Cafe, are always busy.
While Hong’s parents have been in the restaurant business for some time, he’s been working for his parents at Lemon Tree Cafe since its opening around a year ago. Each weekend, Hong works from opening til close, which entails that Hong has to arrive at the restaurant, at the latest, at 7:45 a.m. to start setting up. In the mornings, Hong fills the ice machine, preps the espresso machine and stocks eggs and milk to prepare for the morning rush.
“During vacation and breaks, I’ll be working almost every day. But when it comes to during the school year, I’m usually just there on weekends, specifically just Sunday, because that’s usually the biggest and busiest day,” Hong said. “One of the most important things for us is probably going to be eggs and milk because they run out fast at a breakfast cafe.”
One of the main reasons Hong works in the restaurant is to help support his parents physically and technically.
“I need to help out and make sure my parents don’t get tired. [Running a restaurant], you get tired a lot, really easily. So I think it’s probably my responsibility as well to make sure my parents are healthy,” Hong said.
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Hong’s parents sat him down and gave him a talk about his responsibilities.
“My parents told me about why they’re employing me and why it’s my responsibility. We had a long talk and they basically told me that, as you grow up, responsibilities come, and they thought that it was better for me to start practicing that early on,” Hong said. “So that’s why they were allowing me to work when I was young, and basically, I’ve been understanding that since then. I was definitely very somber at the moment. I think that was one of the moments that I did cry.”
In addition to working for his parents, Hong also contributes the money he makes back into supporting his parents. Hong thinks of his work as his parents preparing him for his future in the real world.
“Most of it actually goes to paying off my family’s stuff, like car, mortgages and rent,” Hong said. “But once it gets to my personal life. I usually put it into a savings account. I’m just saving that up, probably for college, probably for other stuff as well. What I think they’re trying to do is make me an independent person. And I think they’re practicing that by having me relate everything as it would be in the real world because our society is very capitalist and very business-centered.”
However, Hong is able to find joy in the intricacies of his job. Over the last summer, Hong began posting videos on Instagram featuring various drinks like coffee and lemonade that he would create at his parents’ cafe. Creating such drinks offers a different aspect of the work to Hong.
“There’s always going to be variations. Nothing’s going to be the same, no matter how hard you try,” Hong said. “So I go all out with that, and so if you have seen my Instagram, I [make] drinks. So what I do is I make art within the drink and I just make it unique. There’s not going to be any drink like this ever again or ever before.”
With the building academic workload of senior year, Hong has learned how to balance his work throughout the week.
“I just have to do it. I usually do it one at a time, whether that’s assignments or everything else that I have to do, regarding both my own life and also the work life,” Hong said. “It all just adds up, and I just kind of subtract from it one by one. That’s what I do.”
Hong’s parents have been working in the restaurant business since before he was born, with Hong joining the restaurant business with his parents and sisters Hayley and Ivie around 10 years ago.
“Back when I was starting, it was mostly [just] helping out because I wanted to feel included,” Hong said. “Because usually I just sit there at the first table, doing my homework and I just wanted to kind of feel like part of the team. So after that started, I just started integrating myself a lot more.”
The time Hong has invested into his job is not only rewarded monetarily, but also through the various soft skills that he obtains during his shifts.
“I practice a lot of soft skills like small talk for sure. Especially for slower service, you have to be more outgoing. It was definitely outside of my comfort zone, but I think once you get the hang of it, it’ll just be really easy to talk to other people, even if you don’t know them at all,” Hong said. “When I practiced small talk and just communication in general, I think that helped me because I do a lot of things like teaching and tutoring. So that’s probably one of the biggest applications of what I’ve learned from my job, the communication aspect of it. I make sure people are comfortable and that hospitality is a really good way to learn.”
In the end, the culmination of Hong’s work at the restaurant is a combination of his obligations to his parents and his own motivation.
“My family has made a lot of sacrifices for me so I could end up where they want me to be, or where I should be,” Hong said. “So that’s one of the reasons why I do enjoy doing the work that I do for my parents. I enjoy making sure that they’re staying healthy and not overworking themselves, but also making sure that I’m working for what I want as well.”
