This Berkeley-based documentary project tells the stories of California ‘donut kids’

excerpt:

California loves a good donut. Estimates peg the number of donut shops at around 3,000 locations for the state, and around 1,500 just in the L.A. metro area. Even more remarkable, more than 90% of those shops are independently owned, and around 80% are owned by Cambodian immigrant families. Families like Yamamoto’s, who immigrated first from China to Cambodia, and then generations later to California.

Baker Quan Lai at King Pin Donuts in Berkeley. Photo: Cirrus Wood

3 Likes

Interesting! I remember a story like that from a few years ago!

A link in the second to last post, but this time I got a paywall. This is a nice update.

Here is a NYT piece from 1995!
[NYT](Long Beach Journal; From Cambodia to Doughnut Shops https://nyti.ms/297MbdZ)

2 Likes

PinkBoxStories sounds like a cool project. Looks like they don’t update social media very often, but I’ll try to keep eye on them.

Sporkful had two enjoyable episodes about Ted Ngoy, “the Donut King”.

@shrinkrap , that thread you linked is making me nostalgic for some of my favorite (non-Cambodian owned) places that have since closed: Donut Dolly, Donut Savant, and Arlequin. Man, pity I’m about to go to sleep 'cuz I’m really jonesing for a doughnut right now :slight_smile:

2 Likes

A great thing about Colonial Donuts being open 24 hours is I occasionally catch them making fresh Old Fashioned (their best donut, imo) around 8 pm, just after I get out of shopping at Trader Joe’s.

2 Likes