Taste of community

Jane Lam ’24, is more familiar with Taste of China than nearly anyone else, with her parents owning the East Side location and her uncle owning the Coralville location. Both locations have been family-owned since opening, and her mother, Jenny Xiong, has seen countless other families grow through the lens of the store. Building a community of loyal customers has been one of the tenets of the restaurant. 

“They’ll bring gifts, and we’ll give them gifts back. I know some [customers] bring in Christmas cookies, cakes or chocolates,” said Lam. “It’s my family’s livelihood, a huge part of my life growing up. We’d celebrate Chinese New Year’s there every year with the employees,” Lam said. 

Even throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Taste of China was determined to stay as strong as ever. 

“We worked with some family friends and renovated the restaurant. We shut down for the first time, a lot of my family is at higher risk,” Lam said. “There was also a lot of Asian xenophobia going around at the time,”

According to a report by the Federal Reserve, around 400,000 businesses had to close their doors in the first quarter of 2020. Thankfully, Taste of China is one of the businesses that was able to reopen and emerge stronger than ever. 

“We have built a community, a family in Iowa City,” Xiong said. 

Lam mirrored this statement, talking about the familiarity of the restaurant. “It’s like a home… it’s attached to a lot of memories of growing up and my childhood,” Lam said. “It’s just very warm and dear to my heart.”

Taste of China strives to bring this sense of home to all of their customers. In fact, one of the things Xiong treasures most is seeing the multigenerational impacts the restaurant has brought. “I’ve seen people grow up, come in on a date, get married, and bring their kids,” Xiong said.

On a much larger scale, the effects of Taste of China have spread throughout the country. Xiong told stories of previous customers who moved across the country yet still returned to eat the food.

“There’s another one who moved to California, and every time he comes back to Iowa City, he comes in to eat at our restaurant… he says he just can’t get the same taste,” Xiong said.

All in all, Taste of China has not just achieved their goal of building bridges through food but surpassed it. They’ve taught others how kindness repays with kindness and how food can build a family.

Shining in the dark

Siomara Luna-Garcia’s ’24 family only recently started Luna’s Tacos, but it was a life-changing decision. Luna-Garcia’s mom, Isabel Garcia, started the food truck in the summer of 2019 after she was let go from an assistant nursing job. This was the perfect opportunity to go all in on her dream of owning a food truck.

Additionally, Luna-Garcia recalls that she would never see her mother due to the shifts at the hospital, noting that opening the food truck was a positive change, especially since her brother has Autism. Her brother was born six years ago and was diagnosed with Autism just before Garcia started the business.

“He takes up a lot of time, so there needs to be somebody who could devote that time,” she said.

Having the food truck allowed her mom to decide her own hours, gaining the flexibility necessary to raise a child with a disability.

“I can spend more time with the family, when I want to. I don’t have to tell people I have to take my son to therapy,” she said. “You can work with your family.”

Garcia came down with Crohn’s disease, a condition that affects bowel movements, leading to severe pain. She was in the hospital as a patient and couldn’t continue working. This was another factor that spurred the business idea.

“I cannot work in the hospital because now I am a patient in the hospital,” she said. “I cannot manage my work schedule because I couldn’t work anymore.”

Luna-Garcia’s dad also helps with the food truck. Before Luna’s Tacos began, he worked at Panda Express in the Coral Ridge Mall as well as in the kitchen of a hospital. He quit his job at the hospital but stayed at Panda Express due to the duties of working a food truck. However, since the end of summer, he has been working in the food truck full-time, quitting his job at Panda Express as well.

Luna-Garcia helps out, too. She does the finances for the company and is an extra worker when they need her.

“Sometimes I gotta go to festivals and events,” she said. “I’m always the one that goes [if there’s no employees that can].”

She also works Thursday through Sunday weekly. Since she has seventh period open, she heads to the prep space right after school. Then the workers leave at 5 p.m. to park the food truck in the ped mall of Iowa City. Luna-Garcia doesn’t leave until 11:30 p.m., often getting home around midnight. The family sets up a food tent at the Iowa City Farmer’s Market on Saturday mornings as well. They cater weddings and corporate events as well.

However, late Friday nights often have the family up until 3 a.m. when they have to be at the Farmer’s Market at 6 a.m. Garcia notes that time is a challenge for the family. It’s nice to be able to take off work when she wants, but she has to work to make a living. Balancing family and work life is difficult, but she has learned to manage throughout the years.

“You have to manage the family and the work,” she said. “Siomara needs to go to school [and] my son needs to go to therapy. If you don’t work enough, you don’t have enough money.”

Garcia hopes to expand her business in the future so that individuals with disabilities can work alongside others, providing an inclusive community for everyone.

“We [want to] have people with disabilities work with each other and other people,” Garcia said.