For the past 15 years Happy Wok has been the most popular Chinese restaurant in the 10451 zip code area. The restaurant sits on the corner of 157th Street and Gerard Avenue, and it has been untouchable by competitors. Over the past five years three other Chinese restaurants have opened up on the same block and were forced to close. These other new restaurants tried everything to save their business but they didn’t stand a chance against Happy Wok.
This just goes to show how new businesses operate; they slash prices and cut quality to increase sales and profit. However, it is businesses like Happy Wok that mainly focus on the quality of their food in order to keep their customers satisfied, who survive.
Since January 2008 there have been over 153 noise complaints to 311 from the 10451 zip code area in the Bronx. This Bronx area is ranking at number one right now as the most noise complaints to 311.
This comes as no surprise, in building 735 Walton Avenue on 156th Street, resident Andrea James makes a noise complaint to 311 at least once a week. “The Latinos in the building seem to have a party everyday,” she says. Ms. James states that she calls 311 and make a noise complaint then they send the cops who ask the noisy resident to tone it down. However, here is where the problem comes in, the noisy resident has their stereo on full blast and after the command from the police they turn it down to half blast which is still very loud.
“The government should fine the noise makers after a certain amount of complaints against them,” says Ms. James. This would not be such a bad idea since 311 receive hundreds of noise complaints per month.
Golden Krust has done it again; hopefully they will get it right the 111th time around. In a matter of two years Golden Krust has closed and opened a location on the same street. The first restaurant was located on 161st Street on Grand Concourse that was shut down in early 2006 and in September of 2007 the Franchise started the construction of a new location on 161st Street on Gerard Avenue.
With 111 restaurants across eight states, Golden Krust has become the official masters of closing and reopening a restaurant. Founder, Lowell Hawthorne has 10 siblings, so it comes as no surprise when I step into a Golden Krust restaurant in the Bronx and the owner’s last name is either Hawthorne or Clark. The franchise is an open one but I have to say that even when visiting a relative in Suffern, NY the Golden Krust in that neighborhood was owned by a member or the Clark. When I work at a Golden Krust in 2004 in Yonkers, the restaurant was owned by Mrs. Clark, the sister of Lowell Hawthorne, and when she sold the restaurant in 2006, it was sold to her cousin, a Hawthorne. The Golden Krust that reigned on 23rd Street for about two years was also owned by a member of the Hawthorne family.
It currently stands that there is not any one zip code in the Bronx that does not have a Golden Krust restaurant in its area. Golden Krust is so obsessed with franchise numbers that they fail to do a proper market analysis of the intended area and a proper financial assessment of its future location owner.
Residents at this 7 story Walton Avenue apartment building are still in shock after 34-year-old Miguel Matias their superintendent strangled and stuffed his 14-year-old daughter in the boiler on Saturday morning.
This brutal violence came after a heated argument between Anna Matias and her father when he caught her using instant messenger to chat with a boy on his computer. Tiffany Hopkins a building resident explains that Miguel’s sister was in the apartment at the time of the murder in the other room and she said that she heard them arguing but she “didn’t think anything of it.” Little did Miguel’s sister know that Anna was in the other room taking her last breath.
Ms. Hopkins described him as “quiet. He always said hello when passing and he seemed normal.” She also described Anna as happy, playful, and always dressed in the latest fashions.
Anna Matias lived with her mother in Pennsylvania and only visited her dad on the weekends. This arrangement came after her father dosed a car that she and her mother Jocelyn was in and tried to burn them alive.
Teary eyed Ms. Hopkins shakes her head, “It makes no sense; he tried to burn her alive before and he was still allowed to have unsupervised visits. It seems like he finally finished the job and I hope he burns in hell for it.”
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