Organization
Christy's Donuts
Christy's Donuts is the doughnut shop in La Habra, California, whose purchase by the Ngoy family in 1977 began the Cambodian-owned doughnut shops of California.[1] The Ngoys, led by Ted Ngoy, bought the shop at 1200 El Camino Real for $30,000 and made it the starting point of a chain that spread across Southern California.[1] As of 2021, shops under the Christy's name operated at more than 20 sites across the state.[1]
History
Ted Ngoy came to Los Angeles as a Cambodian refugee.[2] He trained at Winchell's donut school and managed two shops before starting his own brand.[3] In 1977 the family bought Christy's Donuts in La Habra.[1][4] Under Ngoy the shop made its doughnuts fresh several times a day and stayed a family business, staffed by his relatives.[2] The Fullerton Observer gives 1983 as the year the Christy's business was established.[3]
The chain grew quickly on the labor of the extended family.[1] Epicure & Culture counts 20 Christy's shops within five years. Goldsea counts more than 25 by 1979, all run by Cambodian relatives and other refugees, and 32 Christy's locations in 1987.[2][5][6] The Ngoys came to own more than 50 locations in Southern California, and the Fullerton Observer puts the peak at about 85 shops.[4][3] Ngoy sponsored about 100 Cambodian families, taught them to make doughnuts and helped them settle in the United States.[3]
In 1980 Ngoy and his business partners chose pink doughnut boxes because they cost less. The pink box became a symbol of the Cambodian doughnut shop.[1] The documentary The Donut King puts the share of California's more than 1,000 doughnut shops run by Cambodian families Ngoy helped sponsor, or their descendants, at 95 percent.[3]
Today
By 2021 the original Christy's Donuts shop in La Habra had become an oil-change business. A nearby Christy's operates at 326 North Euclid Street in Fullerton.[1] As of 2025 the Euclid shop was the flagship, run by its owner, Setha, and fewer than five Christy's locations kept the original yellow and black signs.[3]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 A People's Guide to Orange County, Christy's Cambodian doughnut shop (2021)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Epicure & Culture, A history of the doughnut in Los Angeles (May 2019)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Fullerton Observer, Christy's Donuts: A Legacy of Resilience and Community (November 2025)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Odd Athenaeum, Pink doughnut boxes (April 2024)
- ↑ Goldsea, The Cambodian Donut Dynasty in Southern California (March 2026)
- ↑ Goldsea, The Cambodian Donut Dynasty in Southern California (March 2026, alternate address)