1200 El Camino Real, La Habra
The California phenomenon of Cambodian-owned doughnut shops started here in Orange County in the late 1970s after the arrival of Southeast Asian refugees.
After escaping the Khmer Rouge and arriving in Camp Pendleton in May of 1975, Ted Ngoy was sponsored by Peace Lutheran Church and settled in Tustin with his family, working as a groundskeeper and janitor by day and a Mobil gas station attendant by night. Labor-intensive jobs such as these were the ones most readily available to immigrants and refugees. There was a doughnut shop located next door to the Mobil station, and Ngoy’s first taste of a doughnut reminded him of a nom kong, a rice flour pastry from Cambodia. As he watched the customers coming and going, he decided that this would be a business venture he could learn. At that time, Winchell’s franchises dominated the doughnut market in Southern California. Ngoy’s church sponsor helped him become the first Southeast Asian accepted into Winchell’s management training program. This led to him managing a Winchell’s in Newport Beach, and he slowly began bringing his entire family to work with him.
In 1977 the Ngoys purchased Christy’s Donuts in La Habra for $30,000 and rapidly expanded their business throughout Southern California by relying on the labor of their extended family. In the following years, Ngoy created opportunities for other Cambodian Americans to lease or own their own shops. In 1980, Ngoy and his business partners decided to use pink doughnut boxes because they were less expensive, eventually creating an iconic and culturally specific container. By the 1990s the Los Angeles Times estimated that there were 1,500 Cambodian-owned doughnut shops in California, home to the largest population of Cambodian people in the United States.
For Ted Ngoy, the 1990s marked the era of his declining wealth amassed as the “Donut King.” Gambling, extramarital affairs, and political ambitions led Ngoy back to Cambodia, where he rebuilt his life. His brightly colored original Christy’s Donuts shop is now an oil-change business, but there is a nearby Christy’s at 326 North Euclid Street, Fullerton, and other Christy’s are at more than twenty sites across California.
To Learn More
- Nichols, Greg. “Dunkin’ and the Doughnut King.” California Sunday Magazine, November 2, 2014.
- Ted Ngoy in 1977, in front of the first doughnut shop he bought. Image courtesy of Ted Ngoy and California Sunday Magazine.