She was a waitress for nine years, paying her way through college while learning English and obtaining the necessary skills to build a promising career.

Her father-in-law was an experienced head chef who had difficulty getting around and was looking for a permanent place to deliver his specialty dishes from the kitchen.

When a small restaurant opened on Auburn’s west side, Ivy Chen and Bing Zhao jumped at the chance to work together and go into business on their own.

And they haven’t looked back.

“I like it here,” Chen said with a smile. “We decided to do this … to work for ourselves and to provide a better life for my children.”

Sweetie Bistro is Chen’s first foray into the restaurant business. She wanted to call it something different, something atypical of Chinese cuisine eateries.

Chen’s family is originally from Canton (Guangzhou), a key national transportation hub and trading port in southern China. Her parents operated a grocery store and restaurant in their homeland for several years before coming to America.

They lived temporarily in San Francisco better settling in Seattle, where Chen met her husband, Jing, who is in the construction business. They have two children.

The bistro is open daily and offers a full-scale, traditional Chinese lunch and dinner menu.

Elsewhere

• The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) recently recognized Puget Sound Energy customers’ commitment to clean energy by naming the utility’s Green Power Program as one of the “Top 10” out of 850 green-power programs in the country in 2010. PSE customers have earned the honor from the NREL for nine years in a row.

In 2010, PSE sold 314,893 megawatt-hours (MWh) of Green Power renewable energy, up from 303,046 MWh in 2009 and 291,167 MWh in 2008. The number of PSE customers enrolled in the program in 2010 reached 29,398 (28,524 residential customers and 874 business and government customers). That compares with 25,789 participants in 2009 and 21,509 in 2008.

PSE’s voluntary Green Power Program gives PSE electric customers a way to guarantee that some or all of the energy they use is matched in the electric grid with electricity from wind, solar, biomass and other renewable energy sources in the Pacific Northwest. None of the renewable energy in PSE’s Green Power Program is generated by PSE; it all comes from other Northwest producers of renewable power.

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We’re open

• Business: Sweetie Bistro (previously T & T Chinese Express)

• Location: 739 W. Main St., corner of H Street Northwest and Main, Auburn

• Specializing: Traditional Chinese cuisine, including beef, pork, chicken and seafood entrees and chef’s specialists. Deep fried milk is a dessert exclusive.

• Hours: 11 a.m.-9:30 p.m. Sunday-Thursday; 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Friday-Saturday. Free delivery with $20 minimum order, within four-mile radius.

• Telephone: 206-963-8679