Press
Monster Children Goods & Services
Our friends from Monster Children checked in on us and left us with some questions to answer. Head over to their site to read the interview, Goods & Services.
Carhartt WIP
Secret Menu Magazine
Honored to be included in Secret Menu magazine, a new magazine for the restaurant community, alongside some other amazing Asian restaurants. Thank you to our friends, Amber Maalouf for capturing the photos and Maya Eslami for writing the words. You can read the entire magazine digitally on their website.
With Warm Welcome ~ Weekly Welcome Podcast
I recently let it allllll hang out on the With Warm Welcome podcast. It’s probably the greatest representation of the intentions behind Woon ~ where it came from, how it started and where I intend for it to be in the future. It’s always fun doing these and listening to them months later….it really reminds me to focus on our core values and how we got here. Give it a listen if you’re sitting in traffic…
CLAE Perspectives
Had a little chat with our friends at CLAE about how a guy in skate/surf apparel marketing ended up with a Chinese restaurant. I only wear really dirty and greasy boots to work, so now I’m stoked I have some nice clean shoes for my days off!
“For our latest edition of Perspectives, we sat down with Keegan Fong, who spent over a decade in the marketing world specializing in skate and fashion and has now pivoted into the restaurant industry with Woon Kitchen. From applying his marketing experience to the perfect restaurant soundtrack, Keegan takes us through his life as a restaurant owner and the key components that come together to bring his mother’s dishes to the LA food scene.”
Elevate Your Game: A Day w/ Skratch Golf
Elevate Your Game - a PGA Tour / Skratch Golf production in partnership with Stratusphere Gin which features a behind the scenes look at creators and makers driving the game of golf forward.
Growing up, I was obsessed with skateboarding. I was also obsessed with golf. I’d go skate one day in baggy clothes and then golf the next in a beat up Volcom hat and tucked in polo. I played golf competitively throughout high school and tried out for college golf, but didn’t make the team. I had to opportunity to choose an internship in the golf industry or the skate industry and I chose the skate world which led me to my first internship during college at a skate/surf/snow magazine called Transworld. I showed up to my interview in a shirt and tie (I got laughed at, but still got the job). Eventually, I ended working at skate/surf/snow brand, DC Shoe Co. and then a fashion driven skate/surf brand called Insight, and eventually helped start a surf brand called Vissla before opening Woon. At this time, skating and golfing were two completely different worlds and I had to keep them separate for the most part (with the exception to a few friends who did both, like Bryan who’s featured in this video). Today, I don’t skate as much because I suck, but those lines are blurred and almost all skaters have tried golf. Some have even started golf brands.
Fast forward, and I decided to open Woon, a Chinese restaurant. A third world that has nothing to do with the other two. It’s weird to think that mashing all three of these worlds has brought me to my dream of working with the PGA Tour/Skratch Golf on a project. This is a dream come true in the weirdest way. Special thanks to Cole Young / Metalwood Studio, Zoe Wilson and Stratusphere Gin for making this happen and Jeff + Bryan for tagging along.
Woon In Friends of Friends
“For Keegan Fong, opening the LA-based restaurant, Woon, was about harnessing childhood memories of braised pork belly and five-spice chicken wings, and creating a place of nourishment that connects with his own family traditions.
Starting out as a pop-up stand and family passion project, the culinary endeavor soon developed into the renowned restaurant it is today—a noodle shop serving Keegan’s mother’s own recipes, and beloved meeting point among LA’s noodle aficionados as well as Keegan’s own community.
Together, with our friends at Closed, we spoke to Keegan about opening a restaurant without ever working in one before and the experience of running a business together with his family and friends.
In addition to sparking the conversation below, Keegan’s story and tight-nit relationship with the creatives of his community also inspired Closed to collaborate with Keegan and mixed media artists TY Williams on the design of two exclusive organic cotton t-shirts.”
Woon x CLOSED Feature + Collaboration Tees
Our friends from Berlin-based media agency, Friends of Friends, recently linked us up with CLOSED, a European heritage brand born in 1978 based on French imagination, Italian craftsmanship and German tradition.
We are thrilled to have collaborated with them on two t-shirts featuring the artwork of our best friend, Ty Williams. The collaboration t-shirts are made of organic cotton and come packaged in a custom printed takeout box.
Both tees are available now in-store and online at Woon or CLOSED. You can also head to their website for an extensive interview and photo feature shot by our good friend, Cody James.
Woon in LA Times!
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.
Woon in Amadeus Magazine
We are honored to be a part of Issue 20, the final issue of Amadeus Magazine which is available for preorder now at amadeusmag.com. Read a conversation with my friend Maya Eslami about how Mama Fong immigrated to the US and the inspiration behind opening Woon, alongside some beautiful images by Adam Amengual. Thank you, Amadeus!!
Madewell: Humans We Heart
Madewell came by to hang with me for a day in LA! We hung out at Woon then headed to my buddy, Nick Fisher’s natural wine bar, El Prado, in Echo Park. We ended the day at Elysian Park and played tennis in jeans :)
“What’s cooking? We caught up with LA-based chef and restauranter Keegan Fong and chatted about everything, from his favorite local spots to how he turned his side hustle into a full-time gig.”
Rockstar Eater @ Woon
Steve Cha from Rockstar Eater came by to eat at Woon. We love this!
Madewell: Sunday Suppers
We shared Mama Fong’s Smashed Radish Salad recipe with Madewell for their Sunday Suppers feature. Scroll down for the full recipe. Hope you get to enjoy it for dinner tonight! If you’re too lazy to make it we have some available at the shop nightly. Also, Mama Fong was so stoked to go shopping for clothes for this!
Woon for General Admission x New Era x LA Dodgers
Our friends at General Admission featured some of their favorite LA spots to celebrate the launch of their New Era x LA Dodgers caps. The people are what make LA so great and make them such great Dodgers fans. I grew up playing baseball and going to those games, so to have a business in LA and be a part of the same conversation as them is an honor!!
