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The Rise and Fall of a Donut Kingdom
Last night on Independent Lens, I watched a documentary about a fascinating American success story titled The Donut King. The movie was a biography of Ted Ngoy, a Cambodian civil war refugee who upon arriving in the US in the 1970’s started a career in the California donut industry. 
Ted Ngoy (born Bun Tek Ngoy) was born into a poor Cambodian family in 1942. Sent to the city to study, Ngoy met the beautiful Suganthini Khoeun who was the daughter of a government official. They quickly got married and had three children. With the civil war brewing between Pol Pot’s communist forces and the Western-supported Cambodian government, Ngoy got a high-ranking military job through his wife’s family connections. Once it appeared the Khmer Rouge was on the verge of victory (partly thanks to the US abandonment of the Cambodian government), Ngoy and his family were able to flee to the US as refugees.
After a month in Camp Pendleton, Ngoy’s family was sponsored by a Lutheran Church and given the place to stay. There the church assisted his family in getting on their feet. Ngoy worked as the church custodian and various other jobs to make ends meet. He began to take interest in the success of a Winchell’s donut shop nearby and went to work for them. Within six months he was managing his own shop.
Not wanting to work for someone else his whole life, Ngoy bought his own independent shop in 1977 called “Christy’s Donuts”. Soon after this, he and his wife changed their names to Ted and Christy. His entire growing family put in long hours building up the donut business. As a shrewd businessman, he was constantly looking for ways to save money. One of those was the use of a pink donut box which was cheaper than the regular white boxes. Before too long he was opening up more stores and helping other Cambodian refugees find work. Once the Khmer Rouge was ousted, Ted sponsored over 100 Cambodian families to come to the US; putting them to work in his donut shops and allowing them to lease the shops from him. Finding it hard for the capital-poor refugees to get started with their business, he helped build a donut distribution company that bought and sold donut shop supplies, equipment, and ingredients. At one point he estimated his net worth to be over $20,000,000 and was being hailed as “The Donut King”. He became involved in California Republican politics, hobnobbing with several prominent Republicans. They traveled around the world and bought a mansion in Lake Mission Viejo. When Christy wanted a new Mercedes, they flew to Germany to buy one. He was living the American Dream.
Then it all came crashing down.
A trip to Vegas spelled doom for Ted. He became addicted to gambling and was making regular trips to Sin City (usually lying to Christy where he was going). As the gambling debts piled up, he started to beg his leasees for money, promising that if he didn’t pay them back they would take full ownership of their shop. To do so he would forge his wife’s signature on the contracts. Within a few years, what started with nothing and grew to over 50 donut shop locations was gambled away back to nothing. Ted and Christy moved back to Cambodia to make it right but even there he couldn’t be saved. An affair with a younger woman was the final straw for Christy. Christy filed for divorce and came back to the US, leaving Ted as a single, broke 60-something-year-old.
The documentary ends with the now 77-year-old Ted returning to California visiting some of his family members who are still in the donut business. There is still some animosity towards Ted and the way he had behaved over the years but most put that aside and are thankful for what he did for them.
They say that over 80% of the independent donut shops in California are owned by Cambodians. One estimate says Cambodian ownership exceeds 90% in Texas. Chances are if a donut shop in the US is operated by an Asian American, Ted Ngoy is the reason why.
See the trailer below:
Published in General
Inspiring yet shows our weaknesses and how they can take us down. Immediately I was reminded of this favorite scene from The Ladykillers. (Not quite CoC compliant).
That’s a good one. Here’s my favorite:
Thank you for sharing that story. I will check out the documentary. I’ve heard it said that gambling addiction is the most destructive of all the addictions because it takes down the entire family and in this case, the economic impact rippled throughout the communities where the stores were located.
Wow! I think I ate a lot of Ted’s donuts when I lived in California. When it was my turn to bring donuts to work they were always in pink boxes.
Sad story.
There’s a great donut shop locally owned by a Cambodian family (actually they have two and are opening a third). When they first opened up, I thought, how strange Cambodians and donuts. Now I understand why.
I live in ruralish Missouri and a small regional chain just moved into town a year or so ago. I’m not sure the owner’s exact descent but now I have a pretty good hunch.
Living in Southern California in the 1980s and 1990s I was aware that most of the donut shops (including my local favorite) were run by Cambodians because a Cambodian refugee had succeeded in the business and then helped other Cambodian refugees get into the business. It is a success story similar to many prior immigrant assimilation stories. I had not heard about the sad follow-on.
I work with an immigrant from India. When he came over for school he worked at a hotel group owned by other Indians. It was the same thing as the donut shops but with hotels. A small group became successful running hotels and helped support other immigrants when they’d come to the states.
I had always wondered why all the Best Westerns around seemed to be owned by Indians, that explained it.
I first heard about Cambodian Immigrants and the donut business in “The Future and Its Enemies” by Reason’s Virginia Postrel
It was interesting how a community that had no knowledge of the product became the leading entrepreneurs of it
Gambling is perplexing to me. One of my roommates in college went on to become a priest and then ended up embezzling the collection plate (to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars) to fund a gambling habit. Very smart man, very kind man, but something in him made him believe in magic and also, and unrelatedly, to not control his gambling. There was no hint of that when I lived with him. He pretty much only studied. He was considered a prime contender to be bishop someday. He spent a couple years in jail, and the church finally took him back, but I’m told he will never be allowed to touch money again.
I don’t understand the allure of gambling. I disagree with him that it’s a disease. I think it’s a weakness, and criminal when it’s someone else’s money, of course.
Being an otherwise nice guy is no excuse for stealing. Being a successful entrepreneur is no excuse for wasting an estate and business. Being good is not a part time job. You have to be good all the time. That’s what it means to have character.
What an incredible story. Thank you for sharing it and for the background information. It echoes the story of the Hmong refugees who came to Minnesota in the 1980s (I think!) Talk about a culture shock going from the Far East to the frozen tundra of little-Scandinavia. But as you wrote, they adapted and overcome. I even befriended the lady who was one of those refugees and started Bosa Donuts close to my childhood home. Thanks again for sharing this!
People intuitively believe in the “law of averages”, so that in their minds massive losses promise massive gains, any day now.
The thing to remember about the “law of averages” is that it doesn’t exist.
What a life story. It’s Shakespearean, it’s reminiscent of Nicolas Fouquet.
The higher you go, the farther you can fall.