Our Story
The Woon story starts with ‘Mama Fong,’ as we call her…
born in Shanghai, she lived in Hong Kong with her family before moving to Los Angeles where she was raised, While her parents, Roger and June, had the desire to assimilate, Mama had a desire to rediscover her roots and explore Shanghainese / Cantonese cuisines. She taught herself how to cook Chinese food and became the star of her parents’ regular Mah Jong parties. Fast forward to having her own kids, Keegan & Andrea, when she then became the star of their parties…
Mama Fong was given the name because she took care of everyone. Keegan would come home to Tupperware filled with tofu cucumber salad. Friends would come over and she’d offer to get out of bed and cook for them. Hot pot nights consisted of all the friends surrounding the Lazy Susan having sake bomb contests. The loser would have to eat a chicken foot.
Once Keegan left for college, he had a reality check: the world he grew up in in San Gabriel Valley wasn’t universal. The food of SGV and Mama Fong were not universally accessible. It was a unique upbringing and the exposure to food was rare. Every visit back home he’d request Mama’s stir fried noodles, fishcakes, soy veggie wraps, pork belly, and five spice chicken wings… all of which are on the menu at Woon today. Not only was this Mama’s kids’ request, but it started to become everyone’s request.
This is when we started to do pop ups in LA. First hosting our own pop ups in a Koreatown alley behind our friends’, Pico Studio. The family was all working full-time, so we’d have to take vacation days to prep, work the pop ups, break down past midnight, and do all the dishes next day. This cycle continued for 3 years… back & forth e-mails with the family to see what weekend we’d all be available and then popping up at the local bar in town when the timings worked out. We didn’t make money, but we always had fun and it was fulfilling.
We built quite a following with our wok-tossed noodles. So, one day, Keegan decided to jump ship and give it a shot full-time. He left his steady job in marketing to open Woon’s first brick & mortar in Historic Filipinotown. now, five years later, we are proud to have opened our second location in pasadena.
welcome to woon
