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007 Chinese Food gets new home in Hamburg

The restaurant was one of seven that lost its space in the West Side Bazaar fire in Sept.

HAMBURG, N.Y. — HAMBURG, N.Y. -- One of the restaurants displaced in the accidental fire at the West Side Bazaar in September has a new home.

007 Chinese Food just opened in the Village of Hamburg.

"Three people, three numbers. Zero zero represents my parents and seven represents me," says Henry Heinrich, co-owner of 007 Chinese Food.

007 Chinese Food's catchy name comes from the family who started it. The seven is for the son's birthday. The two zeroes honor his parents.

"We come to the United States with zero. Absolute zero. We come from Burma. When we come to the United States, zero knowledge, zero English, zero money, so we, you know, my mom worked as a housekeeper in Niagara Falls, and my dad, he worked as a dishwasher at the Original Pancake House," says Henry Heinrich.

Refugees for more than ten years, Henry Heinrich's father learned how to make Chinese dim sum in Malaysia.

Jack Sardinia's dad is a lifelong resident of Hamburg. As co-founders of Favordrop, a digital gifting platform, they just moved into a space in Hamburg that happened to have a kitchen when they heard about the fire.

They wanted to help, and Tuesday morning, welcomed Henry and his family.

"It means a great deal to us to bring a more diverse restaurant into our community, and to see this community come together and help 007, help the West Side Bazaar, help WEDI after such a tragedy," said Jack Sardinia.

"Not many people realize this, but what we're really trying to accomplish is all of those businesses serving all of that great food to you, giving you all of those wonderful retail options, what we really want is for each of them to graduate into their own brick and mortar with their programming," said Carolynn Welch, WEDI Executive Director.

While 007 has graduated from the bazaar, they will still get support.

And, WEDI says it should be able to announce a temporary space in the next few weeks for the rest of the restaurants before they go to the new Niagara Street location most likely this fall.

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