Organization
Bayon Market
Bayon Market is a Cambodian grocery and gift shop on East 10th Street in Long Beach, California, and one of the first Cambodian markets on that street.[1][2] Suon Thach and three friends opened it in 1982, and its arrival helped draw Cambodian refugees to 10th Street.[1]
History
Thach said the partners opened the market not only as a business. They "wanted to build up a Khmer (Cambodian) center, a Khmer town," a place that could ease the loss and pain refugees carried.[1] Thach, who also worked as a health education assistant at the Indochinese Service Center in Los Angeles, described how that pain returned after the first relief of arrival: "We lost our homeland. We lost our families, our parents, our brothers and sisters."[1] A community history timeline from Cambodia Town Thrives places the market under 1975, among the first Cambodian markets on 10th Street.[2]
By 1986 nine markets selling foods imported from Asia stood along 17 blocks of the street, most of them owned by Cambodians.[1] That year the actor Haing S. Ngor, who won an Oscar for his role in The Killing Fields, brought a Cambodian-French friend to see the market. The artist Ratha Hou, who had once repaired old Buddhist sculptures for the Cambodian government, made copies of stonework from Angkor Wat for sale in the shop.[1]
The market
Bayon Market sells Cambodian and other Southeast Asian groceries, among them lemongrass, chili peppers, rice noodles and sauces.[3] It also carries Cambodian handicrafts, decorative and Buddhist religious items, and beers such as Beer Lao and Myanmar Beer. In 2026 it was listed as Bayon Market & Gift Shop.[4]