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In Yello's first year, the bar picked up some notoriety after a confrontation between gang members and Chinese-American rapper Jin. Though no one was killed, shots were fired, and neighbors had flashbacks to the space's previous tenant, the gangster-linked dive Jeanie's. Since that 2003 incident, the scene has chilled out significantly. Yello's owner is a second-generation Chinatown resident, and the crowd is predominantly Asian-American and male. Yello's façade makes a brief nod to its name, with a bold yellow light panel and a sideways traffic light with the appropriate signal lit. Inside, standard-issue booths and chairs are dwarfed by a projection television, usually tuned to a sporting event. A low-ceilinged basement is split into two karaoke spaces, one public and one for private parties. Nighttime patrons check lottery tickets against the quick-pick numbers on a monitor as a loud hip-hop soundtrack plays. Dinner covers Mulberry Street's dual legacies, with Italian dishes (ravioli, linguini, clams casino) more prevalent than Chinese (spring rolls, fried rice, stir-fried noodles). Between the ambitions of the menu and the cleaned-up interior, the space's racy past has been pretty much completely scrubbed away. — Ethan Wolff