China House builds pick-up window to serve customers while social distancing

 

SOUTH BEND, Ind.— China House on Mishawaka Avenue opened up for take-out in mid-April but found that curbside service was just not working for them.

“We originally did curbside pick-up, but we didn’t expect so many people to come in. We only have a certain amount of people working,” said Vicky Lin, whose parents own and run China House.

Lin’s father decided to build a pick-up window to replace the restaurant’s front door. 

China House debuted their new pick-up process on April 18, and Lin said it’s been a hit with customers.

“It works somewhat like a drive-thru window. There’s two halves. One half is just a small hole where they can pay through and there’s a microphone attached. On the other half, there’s a two-way door so we place the order in the door, we close the door and they open it on the other side to get their order,” Lin said.

Lin said they will keep the pick-up window in operation for the foreseeable future and aren’t planning to reopen to dine-in customers on May 11 under Governor Eric Holcomb’s five stage plan to restart the economy, which allows restaurants to open Monday with capacity restrictions. 

“We’re just going to keep this up for the safety of us and our customers,” Lin said.

China House, located at 2222 E. Mishawaka Avenue, is open seven days per week from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. for take-out only.