A North Dakota man has spent the last three years providing authentic Asian cuisine to the Bismarck area. That was until the pandemic hit his pockets– hard.

In this Positively North Dakota story, we spoke to a business owner who shows us the true meaning of the phrase “love thy neighbor”.

“Our sales have been dropping down about somewhere 50-60 percent over the last few months,” said Marty Lee, Owner of Noodlezip.

Lee announced yesterday on social media that the restaurant is struggling financially to stay open, because of COVID-19. It’s a place that’s normally packed but now sits empty due to the strain of the pandemic.

“Labor went up. Everything went up and we have our payments scheduled. It’s just hard to survive with reduced income,” said Lee.

Lee says his business did receive a PPP loan, but it acted as more of a band-aid than a cure.

“It lasted a little bit but it went out. It went dry. I had to use up my personal credit card. My wife’s assets. I had to sell some stuff,” said Lee.

Now the restaurant next door, Butterhorn, is working to keep its neighbor afloat. So this week, a portion of Butterhorn’s sales will go straight to Noodlezip.

“Bismarck-Mandan is a small community and we need to support each other and doing that hopefully it kind of pays it forward for other people to do it as well,” said Stephanie Miller, Chef and Owner of Butterhorn.

And Lee’s response?

“I was actually speechless. It’s just unconditional love from someone in the community,” said Lee.

Lee told us in hard times like this it pays off to be North Dakota nice. Noodlezip did start a GoFundMe page, as well. You can find that if you click here.