Thank you to LA Times Food and Jean Trinh for sharing our story in the Sunday paper about kids opening restaurants for their parents. It’s a bit surreal seeing it in print.
Our goal at Woon has always been to share our story…it has never solely been about the food. We wanted to create a place where you could be comforted by the food that we ate growing up as second generation Asian Americans. It was to create an open door for anyone to come through. It has always been to drop the formalities of dining out and just create a place you could hang. It has and will always be about fun, and making yourself at home. It’s where we can make our noodles BLOOD RED and our staff can make a jungle juice for HalloWOON if they feel like it and drink a Cacti on the side. It’s when Mama Fong makes us all pumpkin bread, not to sell, but just for our staff to enjoy cause it’s an annual tradition. It’s when she comes back from a “Woon” shopping trip at 99 Ranch with 80 different flavors of new chips cause the labels looked cute or currant crackers that get eaten within 15 minutes.
Woon is just like our house growing up, where you could do sake bomb contests around the table and the loser has to eat a chicken foot. Call your friends to meet at Woon, have a meal and some drinks to pre-party before your main event. Or if you’re like my sister’s family with two young crazy boys, come make Woon THE main event. Ask for crayons and coloring sheets. Ask for a kids cup for water and take it home with you. Tell us to turn up the music or turn it down, but don’t ask us to turn it off 🙂. Thanks for giving us the chance to share our story with you.
NOW ANYONE CAN SIT DOWN TO MOM’S MEALS
KEEGAN FONG, the owner of Woon, likes to recall how his family home in San Marino was a popular hangout for his friends (and his sister’s friends) while they were growing up — all because of his mother’s cooking.
They’d host shabu shabu nights around a lazy Susan. “It was always fun, and we would do sake bomb contests that my mom participated in,” he said with his mother by his side. Friends affectionately referred his mother, Chen Fong, now 71, as “Mama Fong.”
When Keegan left for the University of San Diego, he found that he missed his mother’s homestyle comfort food. Whenever he’d come home, he’d ask her to make stir-fried beef noodles, fried soy veggie wraps and chilled cucumber and tofu salads (items that are now on Woon’s menu).
Chen lived in Shanghai and Hong Kong before moving to L.A. with her family when she was in her teens. She said she had no choice but to teach herself to cook after eating too many of the chicken pot pies her mother (“a lousy cook”) stocked in the freezer.
“I told my mom maybe one day I should open a restaurant. She called me stupid,” she said, laughing.
After getting married and, later, divorcing, Chen worked as a language interpreter to support her young family, but her passion for experimenting in the kitchen (even taking classes at Le Cordon Bleu) and hosting guests remained.
After college graduation, Keegan worked in skateboard and surf marketing, but he couldn’t shake off the idea of opening a business based on his mother’s cooking.
In 2014, he was asked to host a pop-up cart at Parachute Market, a design fair in Los Angeles. It went well, and his family — his mother, sister and brother-in-law — continued to run pop-ups to much fanfare over the years.
That success inspired Fong, 34, to get serious about a restaurant, one where he could re-create his “experience growing up welcoming people.” But since no one in his family had ever worked in one, there was a steep learning curve.
He raised $400,000, which included money from investors, a small-business loan and his personal savings. He asked his mother to write down her recipes (she cooks by taste and feel) and hired wok cooks who specialized in Chinese stir-fry dishes.
Then he signed a lease on their spot in Historic Filipinotown, but a month later, Chen was diagnosed with breast cancer and went through surgery and radiation treatment. The Fongs finally opened Woon inMarch 2019.
Since the start of the pandemic, Chen, who is now cancer-free, has cut back on the time she spends at the restaurant. She serves as the executive chef and has a dedicated sous chef.
Her son is the general manager and hopes to eventually expand with another Woon location. In the meantime, he’s been growing Woon’s packaged-goods business: sauces, seasonings and dried ingredients.
The Fongs acknowledge that working together as new restaurateurs has been a unique experience. “It has its ups and downs,” Chen said. “Sometimes we yell at each other, but not that much.” Then mother and son looked at each other and laughed.