The Successful Donut: Hard Work
Having recognized the economic advantages of owning a donut shop, Cam- bodian refugees set about buying franchises, opening independent stores, and expanding the donut business in California so prodigiously that by the mid- 1990s, industry insiders expressed fears of supersaturation:
“In my computer, I have 2,400 Cambodian doughnut shops in California,” said Ning Yen, 39, who started with a small shop and now owns an $8 million busi- ness distributing doughnut-making equipment. “I think it’s already too many now,” said Mr. Yen, a disciple of Mr. Ngoy, “and people are fighting each other for business. They just kept opening doughnut shops, and there is not enough demand for them all.”46
Established California donut chains such as Winchell’s also expressed displea- sure with their increased competition:
Nancy Parker, president of Winchell’s, said her company was now down to 120 outlets in California. Before the Cambodian influx, Winchell’s had more than 1,000 outlets in the western United States, mostly in California. “Where we had one Winchell’s shop, they now have three or four Cambodian shops,” Ms. Parker said. “They were very happy with a much lesser volume.”47
In 2002, Winchell’s even began renovating stores and increasing its adver- tising budget in order to compete more effectively with Cambodian donut shops.48 Shop owners relied on three businesses strategies for their success. The first, and perhaps most important, was the willingness of donut shop owners and laborers to work hard. The second was an emphasis on fru- gality and practicality, and the third was the shops’ integration into local neighborhoods.
Whether they viewed it positively or negatively, Cambodian donut shop owners and workers, almost without exception, cited hard work as key to the success of their businesses. Chhu reported that for about fifteen years, she and her husband regularly worked twelve-hour days, six or seven days a week, at
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Sunrise Donuts. They worked even harder in their previous shop, which was their first.49 Unfazed by the long hours, Chhu noted that her customers dis- pelled any potential monotony: “We see different people every day.”50 She also openly speculated that she could handle hard work because of her experience during the rule of the Khmer Rouge.
In contrast, Dul was dissatisfied with the hard work he encountered after leaving the jewelry business to buy a donut shop. He and his wife, Belinda Chhem, each have put in seventeen hours a day, “eight days a week,” in their new venture, he joked. “Too many hours a day, right? Four months, so far I lose thirteen pounds,”51 he added. Both concluded that in terms of work- load, owning a donut shop compared unfavorably with the other jobs they previously held, including Dul’s stint as a jeweler and Chhem’s work in health care. Chhem even moonlighted in a donut shop for some time and found the twelve-hour shifts easy compared with the never-ending concerns of ownership.52