When calling on the then newly opened Lhasa Liang Fen, a snug Tibetan restaurant in Elmhurst, I couldn't help but notice the yellow "laundromat" sign that seemed to rise like a smokestack above the restaurant's green awning. Previously this tiny space was, in fact, part of the laundry next door. (Confirm this for yourself via the street-view timeline of Google Maps, which offers an invaluable if sporadic visual record of business comings and goings.) At some time after September 2013, the storefront was split, unevenly, in two. Beside the downsized laundromat, an even smaller bubble-tea parlor took hold; later, bubble tea gave way to liang fen.
The yellow sign brought to mind other sightings of laundries and food businesses operating in symbiosis, often under the same roof. Sometimes they had a single owner; in other cases, it seemed that the laundry had sublet space to a food kiosk or was accommodating street vendors who set up outside the door. I recall, from one particularly cold afternoon, an apparently unattended display of foodstuffs along a laundry stoopline. Looking more closely, however, I spotted the vendors just beyond the window; they were keeping warm, and shelling ginkgo nuts, inside the laundry.
For more photos, see my album.
