Interview with Jack Kang, May 18, 2022

Interview with Jack Kang, May 18, 2022

Asian Americans

Texas--History

Cooking, American

Cooking, Chinese

Cooking, Japanese

2022-05-18

audio

2021oh002_di_013

Betsy Brody

Jack Kang

5.4 Interview with Jack Kang, May 18, 2022 2021oh002_di_013 01:30:13 ohdi Digging In di001 How Food, Culture, and Class Shaped Asian Dallas Becoming Texans, Becoming Americans This project is possible thanks to the support of a Mellon/ACLS Community College Faculty Fellowship. Asian Americans Texas--History Cooking, American Cooking, Chinese Cooking, Japanese Jack Kang Betsy Brody wav oh_dig_audio_kang_jack_20220518.wav 1:|15(1)|23(12)|44(8)|58(4)|71(12)|83(12)|98(7)|113(2)|121(5)|136(6)|153(1)|161(13)|172(9)|184(17)|202(8)|211(9)|226(16)|242(7)|253(5)|263(9)|277(6)|290(4)|300(2)|311(5)|320(3)|330(14)|339(16)|357(6)|370(6)|377(7)|390(13)|401(6)|415(11)|430(2)|439(16)|449(15)|460(15)|473(11)|484(16)|499(3)|507(11)|516(3)|527(3)|537(10)|548(5)|558(14)|572(4)|589(3)|602(14)|619(9)|631(6)|639(14)|652(7)|669(7)|680(6)|693(4)|702(7)|714(6)|723(16)|741(5)|753(5)|763(1)|774(7)|785(11)|794(6)|806(11)|817(10)|828(9)|837(9)|849(13)|859(13)|876(3)|888(13)|899(1)|912(6)|925(14)|937(8)|945(13)|956(7)|964(4)|978(7)|990(5)|1001(1)|1017(1)|1031(9)|1040(5)|1051(1)|1060(7)|1072(7)|1090(1) 0 https://betsybrody.aviaryplatform.com/embed/media/159921 Aviary audio 3 Introduction Asian Americans ; Cooking, American ; Cooking, Chinese ; Texas--History 28 Moving to the United States from Taiwan education ; family ; Plano ; restaurant ; Taiwan 271 Opening Nakamoto's Sushi and Mr. Wok in Plano Anzu ; Chinese restaurant ; Japan ; Mr. Wok ; Nakamoto ; restaurant ; Rice Bowl ; Simon Chen ; Soda ; sushi ; Sushi Sake ; Uncle Tai 622 Mr. Wok and Kang's Cafe/Menu Chinatown ; Japan ; Japanese ; Kang's Cafe ; menu ; Mr. Wok ; palate 33.0186765330977, -96.67984549630737 17 970 Cooking and serving Peking Duck and Beggar's Chicken Beggar's Chicken ; cooking ; menu ; Mr. Wok ; Peking duck 1263 Mr. Wok's customer demographics and atmosphere BYOB ; customers ; Dallas ; foodies ; Mr. Wok ; Plano 1399 Converting an old Pizza Hut into Mr. Wok advertising ; celebrations ; design ; family ; fire ; interior design ; Kang' Cafe ; Mr. Wok ; Pizza Hut ; remodel 1829 Neighbors neighbors 1918 Considerations in designing the menu approachable ; authentic ; authenticity ; business ; Chinese restaurant ; educate ; education ; Japanese ; menu ; palate ; western palate 2084 Thoughts about fusion cuisine and authenticity adventurous ; authentic ; authenticity ; bridge ; Cantonese ; Chinese restaurant ; comfort food ; Dallas ; dumb down ; flavor ; flavors ; foodies ; fusion ; Japanese ; ramen ; regulars ; Singapore ; sweet and sour chicken ; Szechuan ; University of Texas at Dallas ; UTD 2681 Sourcing the ducks for Peking Duck celebrations ; New Year ; Peking duck ; suppliers 2897 Kang takes over Mr. Wok after his father's retirement business ; Kang's Cafe ; landlord ; lease ; Mr. Wok 3052 Experiences with restaurant reviews in local food media D Magazine ; Dallas Morning News ; Dallas Observer ; menu ; Mr. Wok ; Peking duck ; restaurant reviewer ; restaurant reviews ; reviews 3226 Impact of social media advertising ; Asian Grub in DFDub ; COVID ; fire ; negative reviews ; restaurant reviews ; reviews ; social media ; Yelp 3346 Fire at Mr. Wok fire ; menu ; Mr. Wok ; remodel 3639 Celebrities at Mr. Wok Beggar's Chicken ; celebrities ; Dallas Cowboys ; Dallas Stars ; Ichiro Suzuki ; Phil Costa 3786 Discrimination and racism/Thoughts about hospitality competition ; discrimination ; English ; hospitality ; language ; racism 4008 Expectations and training of employees employees ; hospitality ; labor ; remodel ; training 4333 Decision to remain BYOB alcohol ; BYOB ; liquor ; permits ; Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission ; zoning 4424 Competition and community among Asian restaurant owners Asian community ; Chinese restaurant ; community ; competition ; competitor ; Peking duck 4609 Being a &quot ; mom and pop&quot ; restaurant/Thoughts about expansion brand ; business ; expand ; expansion ; mom and pop ; relationship 4728 Mr, Wok's brand and atmosphere brand ; BYOB ; Chinese restaurant ; family run restaurant ; family style ; hospitality ; Mr. Wok ; Peking duck 4964 Impact of COVID, tornado, and ice storm COVID ; fire ; ice storm ; pivot ; remodel ; supply chain ; tornado 5063 Reflections on challenges of running a &quot ; mom and pop&quot ; restaurant business ; celebrity chef ; city ; cooking show ; health department ; mom and pop ; permits ; social media |00:00:03| Brody This is Betsy Brody. Today is May 18th, 2022. I&#039 ; m interviewing for the first time Mr. Jack Kang. This interview is taking place in my home office in Richardson, Texas. This interview is possible thanks to the support of a Mellon/ACLS Community College Faculty Fellowship and is part of the project entitled &quot ; Digging In: How Food, Culture and Class Shape the Story of Asian Dallas.&quot ; All right, Jack, thank you so much for coming and to start out with. Why don&#039 ; t you tell me where and when you were born? |00:00:36| Kang So I was born in 1978 in Taipei, Taiwan. |00:00:44| Brody What brought you to Texas? |00:00:47| Kang Well, we first immigrated to America in 1981, and our first stop was Nashville, of all places. One of my parents friends owned a restaurant there, a Polynesian restaurant, and he sponsored my parents as his employees. So that&#039 ; s how we were able to come to the States. And so we stayed there for about a year. And my aunt was living here in Plano at the time with her three kids. And so she convinced us to move to Plano from Nashville, which Nashville was a big culture shock to my parents, right? I mean, growing up in Taipei and, you know, they spent all their lives there and then they moved to Nashville. And this was back in the early eighties before it was hip and trendy as it is now. So they, so we made the move to Plano in 81. I think we just missed, like, the hottest summer. I think, I think it was 80 the year before. So we started in Plano and I&#039 ; ve been here ever since. No one, none of my family or extended family is here. They are eventually all moved on. |00:02:14| Brody You stayed? |00:02:15| Kang Yeah. And I stayed? |00:02:16| Brody Yeah. What were your parents&#039 ; names? |00:02:19| Kang My dad&#039 ; s name&#039 ; s R.C. R dot C, and my mom&#039 ; s name was Ann. A-N-N. |00:02:28| Brody So was Plano less of a culture shock for them than Nashville? |00:02:33| Kang I think so, yeah. |00:02:36| Brody What did they like about it? |00:02:39| Kang They...They definitely liked the schools. They liked the, the school district. I remember...My parents driving us up to Plano East Senior High School not long after it just opened. I think it opened 82. And we, they probably took us up there either that year or the year after and, well, for whatever reason, we went up there like 9 p.m. and they were driving around. I think they were driving around on the sidewalk where they&#039 ; re not supposed to, but they were, we were all blown away. I mean, it was to them it was like a college campus, right? I mean, you know, four, five, multiple buildings, and and it still is. I mean, I think they just celebrated or yeah, this year is their 40th year. So I was up there last week with my son. I took him to a Jazz Band concert and I was showing him around, you know, daddy&#039 ; s school and everything. And yeah, it was it was still quite impressive, you know, how large it is for a senior high that&#039 ; s just 11th and 12th graders. So. |00:03:52| Brody So education was important to them? |00:03:54| Kang Yes, yes, yeah. Education was important to them. And that&#039 ; s why we moved here from Taiwan. So they could give us a better life. Not, not to say that the education in Taiwan is lacking, because it certainly isn&#039 ; t. But I think they just wanted us to grow up in America. |00:04:17| Brody Do you have siblings? |00:04:19| Kang I do. I have an older brother, David. He&#039 ; s in Raleigh, North Carolina. |00:04:31| Brody So what did your parents do for work once they got here? |00:04:35| Kang So yeah, so in a Nashville they, they worked for their family friend, at that Polynesian restaurant and I still remember that restaurant was cool because all the drinks had the little tiki, whatever you call that thing, umbrellas, right. It was all tropical and so they were working there. And I think my dad was a dishwasher there and my mom was front of the house, and then once they moved here to Dallas, to Plano, my dad was working for Uncle Tai, this Chinese restaurant that was on the third floor of the Galleria, I believe. And so he worked there for a few years and then and then worked at Rice Bowl and Plano off and 75 because it was much closer to the house. And during that time, my mom was you know, she was staying at home raising us, and then she was working at Burger King part time to gain cashier experience there. |00:05:51| Brody So back in in Taiwan, had they been involved in food related businesses at all? |00:05:57| Kang They were not. No, they were not. My dad was an executive at a tire company. My mom was in radio for the Army there. Well, my dad was somewhat, I mean, he got his masters in Yokohama, Japan, so he lived there for three or four years. But during that time, his, because his uncle in law had a Chinese restaurant in Yokohama, and so, you know, being a college student, he was working there part time. |00:06:36| Brody So he did have some experience. |00:06:37| Kang So he did. Yeah. Yeah. But he didn&#039 ; t know. At that time, he had no clue that he was going to ever be in the restaurant business. |00:06:45| Brody So how did that happen? |00:06:49| Kang Well, so, after my dad was working at Rice Bowl, he, him and his sister, my aunt, they opened up, Nakamoto&#039 ; s sushi restaurant in Plano off Parker. And so that opened in 85 I believe. And then so they, they were doing that together for about four years. And then my dad branched out and he opened Mr. Wok in 89. And so he was the chef there and he trained all the other employees and staff how to cook and the rest is history. |00:07:37| Brody Yeah. Yeah. Just going back for a second. So your aunt and your dad opened up Nakamoto. So they were the owners? |00:07:46| Kang Yes. |00:07:46| Brody Okay. And so, how did they find like sushi chefs and all of, you know, how did that all go? |00:07:55| Kang Yeah. So both of them spoke Japanese. My dad and my aunt speak Japanese. And so that helped in their search for a sushi chef. I think it was probably a friend of a friend that introduced them to him. And, and actually that was actually Soda. So Soda that owns Sushi Sake started off at, at Nakamoto&#039 ; s. So I&#039 ; ve seen, I&#039 ; ve known Soda since the eighties and I&#039 ; ve seen his kid, you know, grow up. What&#039 ; s his kid&#039 ; s name? T.J., is this kid? Yeah. Yeah. So I&#039 ; ve known Soda, and then after Soda left and opened up Sushi Sake, then Simon Chen, who was the assistant head sushi chef got promoted to sushi chef. And he was the sushi chef for a number of years. And he opened his own restaurant. Simon Sushi right off Plano Parkway there. So, yeah, so I grew up eating really good sushi. I was spoiled. |00:09:08| Brody That&#039 ; s amazing. |00:09:09| Kang It hasn&#039 ; t changed. Eating wonderful sushi. So. Well, that&#039 ; s. |00:09:13| Brody Really interesting then that you have...You&#039 ; re kind of bridging to different types of Asian food just in your own family and, and so then they left Nakamoto, but the restaurant continued to exist. |00:09:29| Kang Yes. Yes. So my aunt continued to own that. And then her daughter, my cousin Phina, was involved in the business as well and for a number of years. And then she opened up her own Pan-Asian restaurant in, off Knox Henderson called, what was the like? Anzu. So she was kind of a pioneer in the pan-Asian cuisine here in Dallas. She was I think she was probably about five or ten years too early for that. But nonetheless, you know, she did good and then she moved on and my cousins all live in New York City, you know? Yeah. |00:10:17| Brody Like you said, you&#039 ; re the only one. |00:10:18| Kang Yeah. I&#039 ; m the only one. |00:10:20| Brody So, so, back to Mr. Wok. So your parents decided to start Mr. Wok in 1989. Tell me about the restaurant. Tell me about what the goals were and the mission, I guess the vision for Mr. Wok. |00:10:35| Kang The vision was just to make a living, a decent living. The first few...the first couple of years, it was it was hard work, of course. You know, as any restaurant goes, you don&#039 ; t make any money, you don&#039 ; t even break even the first two years, you know, that&#039 ; s, you kind of figure out if you&#039 ; re going to make it or not. And so after that, they did well enough and then my dad had a vision of opening a second restaurant in the Las Colinas-Irving area. That catered more towards the Japanese clientele. There was, at that time, the early nineties, there were a lot of Japanese corporations that were based out in Las Colinas. NEC was a really big one and so, the first years at Mr. Wok he had, he had built up his Japanese following as well. You know because he spoke Japanese and he cooked Chinese food that was kind of catered towards the Japanese community because again, going back to him, living in Yokohama, which is the largest Chinatown in Japan. He- that restaurant that he worked at, his uncle&#039 ; s restaurant, you know, a lot of their Chinese food was catered towards to Japanese clientele. So he actually did, I guess, pick up some of the recipes from there and, you know, started serving those dishes at Mr. Wok and then built up the following and then went to open Kang&#039 ; s Cafe in 93 out in Irving. And so he had a very large Japanese clientele, you know, businessmen, large corporate functions, private parties and whatnot. It was a much larger space than Mr. Wok. And so... |00:12:47| Brody So Mr. Wok served both sort of Japanese-ish... |00:12:51| Kang Yeah. So. So, yeah. So we kind of, at that time, we had three different menus. We had kind of our western menu, and then we had a Chinese menu that was that catered towards the Chinese clientele, and then we had a Japanese menu. And so that was kind of overwhelming at times. |00:13:16| Brody Tell me about that. What was the thinking behind doing that and how did it actually pan out for you? What was, what was overwhelming? How did, how was it received? |00:13:27| Kang Oh, it was it was overwhelming, just in terms of the number of items on on the menu. In terms of training new employees in order to get them up to speed on either, you know, order taking or recognizing the dishes or teaching them how to cook the dishes and just stocking, you know, all the inventory and whatnot. It was it was quite a bit of inventory and items that we had to stock. And so how did that pan out? That...Yeah, we went along with that for a number of years and it worked out once he opened his restaurant, the other restaurant, Kang&#039 ; s Cafe, he combined the Chinese and the Japanese menu into one. So at that point we just had two menus, the English menu and then the Asian menu. |00:14:28| Brody At both restaurants? |00:14:30| Kang At Kang&#039 ; s Cafe. |00:14:33| Brody Okay. |00:14:33| So. Mr. Wok, we had all three. So we had sold Mr. Wok, the business. We kept the building. So we sold our business in 96, and then we took it back in 99. And then I started running it in 2000. |00:14:53| Brody Okay. |00:14:57| Kang And so from 2000 to 2006, nothing much was changed. I added a few items here and there, but the overall look of the menu and the interior, I didn&#039 ; t really do anything with that. And in 2006, I decided to revamp and kind of updated the menu to make it more modern. You know, did a website. Then I combined the Japanese and the Chinese menu into one and then we started serving a lot of Peking Ducks around that time because going back to Kang&#039 ; s Cafe, so we had that from 93 to 2005. My dad wanted to retire, so he didn&#039 ; t want to run that anymore. So 2005. And then so he was doing, he was serving Peking Duck out of that restaurant. We weren&#039 ; t serving any duck at Mr. Wok at the time. And then so once he closed down Kang&#039 ; s Cafe, then we moved the duck operations to Mr. Wok and then it just grew exponentially from there. |00:16:08| Brody Yes. So tell me all about that duck and from sort of start to finish, like sourcing, cooking and ordering and serving. |00:16:20| Kang Sure. Yeah. It&#039 ; s, it&#039 ; s a whole process. So we get our ducks in. They&#039 ; re Grade A from Long Island. So they&#039 ; re, they&#039 ; re very lean. And then we marinate the ducks the night before, and then we got to pump the ducks with air. And that separates the skin and the meat. |00:16:40| Brody So pump them with air. How? |00:16:43| Kang With an air compressor. So you tie up the, the bottom of the duck and then you insert the air compressor around the neck and then that will separate the skin and the meat. That way when you go to cook the duck, it crisps up the skin a lot more than if we didn&#039 ; t do that process. So, so it&#039 ; s a 24 hour process that, that goes into it, and it&#039 ; s served with your steamed pancakes or steamed buns, some green onion and some hoisin sauce. And then we take the bones back to the kitchen and we&#039 ; ll chop it up and either, cook a soup from that or stir fry the bones, which is actually very popular as well. |00:17:35| Brody And on the customer side, do they need to order ahead or? |00:17:41| Kang Both? So we recommend them order ahead, but we do prepare extras every day and it&#039 ; s first come, first serve. |00:17:51| Brody And then so on, also on the customer side, what is the experience when your duck comes to the table? |00:17:56| Kang Yeah, so we, so we carve the duck tableside, which is really neat. You know, that&#039 ; s always a big presentation and we&#039 ; ll bring it out and either me or one of my staff will carve the duck right there, and, you know, you&#039 ; re getting all the meat off of it and the skin and, you know, and then, then we take the bones back to the kitchen. And so people like to, you know, bring their friends and kind of show them the whole experience, give them the whole duck experience. And, and that&#039 ; s really cool. You know, we&#039 ; ve gotten lots of great, you know, feedback and awards and whatnot from our duck and other dishes as well. Beggar&#039 ; s Chicken is another dish that we&#039 ; re known for as well. And that, that&#039 ; s very rare now. It&#039 ; s hard to find because it takes a lot of time to cook and labor. And so it&#039 ; s very labor and time intensive. And so what that is, is it&#039 ; s a...We start with a whole chicken, roasting chicken and then we&#039 ; ll stuff the inside cavity with Chinese sticky rice that&#039 ; s been blended with some Cantonese sausage, some shitake mushrooms, some shallots. So that goes inside of the chicken. And then we wrap the entire chicken in lotus and bamboo leaves. And then finally we encase the chicken in a bread dough. And so that cooks for 22 hours in the oven. So it basically it slow roasts. It basically cooks in its own, in that shell, right? So when it comes out of the oven that, that bread shell has hardened, and it&#039 ; s about an inch and a half thick. And then we bring it to the table and the guest of honor or whoever wants to do it, they come up and they, and they try to crack it open with a mallet. And that&#039 ; s always fun because then the whole restaurant&#039 ; s, you know, looking and staring at like, &quot ; What is that?&quot ; And they&#039 ; ve never seen anything like that before. So. So then we proceeded to cut into it and then cut away the leaves and all that, and then they just basically take a spoon and just spoon out the chicken. It is really tender at that point. |00:20:17| Brody That sounds really good. So both of those dishes that you&#039 ; re describing are kind of a spectacle. Was that kind of part of the goal of the type of restaurant that your parents and you wanted to run where you could have this kind of experience? |00:20:34| Kang No, no. Funny thing is, that wasn&#039 ; t ever, you know, the initial goal of the restaurant. It was just, you know, going back, it was just a &quot ; Let&#039 ; s cook some good food, let&#039 ; s see what happens.&quot ; And then, you know, let&#039 ; s see what works and what doesn&#039 ; t work. And so, fortunately, you know, Peking Duck is one of those dishes that did work. |00:21:01| Brody Yeah. So who are your typical customers? Or even was there a typical at Mr. Wok? |00:21:11| Kang Everyone, really. We had a whole spectrum of customers, you know, young, old, minorities, Asian, you know. You know, people from traveling from as far away as Frisco, Lewisville. You know, we&#039 ; re in east Plano, so we&#039 ; re not exactly...Well, during the week we&#039 ; re kind of the, the neighborhood restaurant, right, where we have a lot of the locals within a three mile, five mile radius of us come and visit us. But then on Fridays and Saturdays, on the weekends, we have a lot of customers that travel from farther away, right? We&#039 ; ve got a lot from the north Dallas area, Highland Park, University Park. So yeah, it becomes a destination restaurant on the weekends. And it helps that we&#039 ; re BYOB too. So you&#039 ; re welcome to bring your own wine and beer and, you know, that&#039 ; s really kind of, that&#039 ; s helped quite a bit as well. Being BYOB, you get a lot of foodies, right? So people that enjoy their own, their own selection of wine, right? And so, you know, they come in and, you know, we provide the glasses, we open it up, open up the bottle for them. And, you know, they proceed to enjoy their meal. And at the end, they&#039 ; re always shocked. They&#039 ; re always shocked at how low the total bill is because, you know, if they were to dine out somewhere else and have to order that bottle of wine, it would be obviously three x that price. So they&#039 ; re always, yeah, so people really enjoy coming in and it&#039 ; s a really fun atmosphere and the people just have a great time. It&#039 ; s a small 80 seat restaurant and, by the end of the night, everyone&#039 ; s sharing wine with the other tables. And so, yeah, it&#039 ; s...Yeah, it&#039 ; s fun. |00:23:18| Brody Tell me about at its peak, what the inside of the restaurant looked like. What was the decor? What was the sort of the vibe? |00:23:27| Kang Yeah. So, at the peak, it was, not much was changed from Pizza Hut. Oh. So, yeah, it used to be a Pizza Hut. It used to be a Pizza Hut from 75 to 88. And then, and I&#039 ; ll go into that story in a bit, but...So it was low ceilings. It was eight feet ceilings. You know, we actually used the booths and the tables, but the shape of the windows, it&#039 ; s very distinctively Pizza Hut, right? What is that shape called? A trapezoid? Trapezoidal windows? Which made trying to buy blinds a major issue because you&#039 ; d have to go with custom blinds at that point. But anyway, so it was, it was very cozy. We had nine booths and then we had three round tables in the middle. And so, you know, each round table sat between 12 and 16 people. And so we would have a lot of large parties come in and, yeah, a lot of birthday parties, a lot of celebrations. People made fond memories there. And then we had a fire in 2019. And so I took that opportunity to remodel the interior of it. We basically gutted the entire thing except the four walls. So the four walls were the same, but everything on up, a completely new roof, a completely new ceiling. We opened it up. We&#039 ; ve got exposed trusses now and exposed ductwork. And so it looks a lot more up to date. Let&#039 ; s see. Yeah. Everything&#039 ; s is just new. Got rid of the carpet. It&#039 ; s tile now. It&#039 ; s, you know, updated the bathrooms as well. Kind of...I don&#039 ; t know, kind of that modern, mid-century modern farmhousey look, I guess, that&#039 ; s trending everywhere these days. |00:25:47| Brody So how did the Pizza Hut end up being the Mr. Wok? |00:25:54| Kang So around that time, 1988, 89, my parents were looking to open a Chinese restaurant, and we had gone out as far as Corsicana to look at a restaurant that was for sale. And my parents knew that they wanted a freestanding building, and so it wasn&#039 ; t until...So, I was in fifth grade and we had a reading club. So if you read X amount of books, you would get a free pizza from Pizza Hut. Of course, I wasn&#039 ; t a big reader, so I never got the pizza, but one day one of my classmates, she asked the teacher in front of the class. She said, &quot ; Hey, um, the Pizza Hut&#039 ; s closed, so, you know, where do we go to get our pizzas now?&quot ; And, you know, little ten year old me, like this light bulb went off in my head. And so that afternoon I went back home, got off from school, you know, went back home, and I told my dad I was like, &quot ; Hey, Dad, there&#039 ; s a Pizza Hut somewhere around here that&#039 ; s closed.&quot ; And so we found out where it was, and we drove up there that afternoon, and he, he walked around the inside of the building. Of course, it was locked but he, you know, he peered inside the windows and really liked the layout and everything. And I think the next week, he, they signed the lease. So thank you, Delta Perez, wherever, wherever you are out there. She&#039 ; s the one that asked the teacher about the Pizza Hut. |00:27:33| Brody Did your parents give you a finding fee? |00:27:35| Kang No. No, they, they should have. I need to get with him on that. Yeah. |00:27:40| Brody That&#039 ; s funny. So how did people find you? |00:27:45| Kang Well, the first few years, and as a family, we would walk around the local neighborhoods and pass out fliers and hang fliers on doors. You know, my brother and I...We, you know, I said I was in fifth grade, sixth grade, he was eighth grade at the time. We&#039 ; d roll up fliers and hang them on doors. And it was, it was a lot of word of mouth and even now we don&#039 ; t advertise anywhere. It&#039 ; s just, you know, we grow organically and people just bring other people. And, so, yeah, we&#039 ; re extremely fortunate that it&#039 ; s, that it&#039 ; s worked out that way. |00:28:27| Brody Now, your dad had already, you know, worked at several restaurants as well as owned a restaurant in Nakamoto. So he had some experience in dealing with the city and the health inspectors and things like that. But can you tell me a little bit more about what that was like for him in opening Mr. Wok and Kang&#039 ; s Cafe? |00:28:49| Kang Honestly, I don&#039 ; t know much about that part of it, of him dealing with the city and doing all that. I do know a little bit about what he had to go through in terms of, you know, finding a general contractor for Kang&#039 ; s Cafe. And because he, he had a particular vision in his mind of how he wanted it to look. He was, he was, he&#039 ; s extremely good at that aspect of, of... Just of the interior design aspect of it, where he&#039 ; ll go somewhere and maybe see something at another restaurant or a hotel or something and he&#039 ; ll make a mental note or a sketch of it and then, he&#039 ; ll use that or incorporate that into the design. So, yeah, it was, Kang&#039 ; s Cafe, it had the, the painted wispy cloud ceiling, which I think was the first in the Dallas area. And it was, it was, it turned out really great. I mean, it, you know, if you&#039 ; re looking at it for more than 20 seconds, you could zone out and you would imagine yourself in the clouds there. So it that was, I think, the the one defining feature of Kang&#039 ; s Cafe. And he... I don&#039 ; t know where he saw that at, but he knew that he wanted that when he saw it. |00:30:27| Brody Right. In either one of those locations was, did you have neighbors that were other restaurants or other businesses that you had interactions with? |00:30:39| Kang So Mr. Wok is a freestanding building, so we did not have any interactions with, our neighbor is a car wash. Oh, we don&#039 ; t have any interaction with them. Kang&#039 ; s Cafe, that was in a retail strip center where there&#039 ; s a very popular and, I&#039 ; m not sure if they&#039 ; re still there or not, it&#039 ; s a Louisiana restaurant called Po Melvin&#039 ; s, and they were always really busy. And so their staff and the owner would come by, like on their break on a random, you know, Friday night at 5:00 and then, have some beverages and then go back to work. And so we, we got to know them, quite well. There were, there weren&#039 ; t any other restaurants in that shopping strip at that time. It was just Kang&#039 ; s Cafe and Po Melvin&#039 ; s. And there was a Thai restaurant across the street called Pad Thai. Don&#039 ; t know if that&#039 ; s still there or not, but I think they were a fairly popular Thai joint. |00:31:58| Brody During that time period, you mentioned that your clientele ran the whole spectrum, they&#039 ; re all different types of people. And, you know, and you also had the different, three different menus, right? The Chinese menu and Japanese menu and the Western style menu. So did you have a large Asian population that were your customers? |00:32:21| Kang Yeah. Yeah, we did. You know, Kang&#039 ; s Cafe, probably, I don&#039 ; t know the breakdown of it. I couldn&#039 ; t even guess. Probably more than 50%. |00:32:35| Brody So in designing the menu, what were, what were the goals, I guess? Like some people that I&#039 ; ve talked to, talk about that, when they were designing the menu of their restaurant, one part of it is obviously- and a large part of it- is obviously trying to think of things that people will actually buy. And, you know, it&#039 ; s a business decision, but it sounds like for many people there&#039 ; s also an education piece of it. That wanting to introduce and project the culture so other people can learn about it. |00:33:04| Kang Right. |00:33:05| Brody Where do you stand on those issues? |00:33:08| Kang Yeah. So, you know, absolutely. I agree. It&#039 ; s you know, we had sections of it or certain items that were more popular that were, I would say approachable, that wasn&#039 ; t too foreign. And then we had some items that were, a little bit, you know, like jelly fish and stuff on there. And, you know, that&#039 ; s something that non-Asians don&#039 ; t really eat or haven&#039 ; t come across. And so we, we put it on there in the hopes that maybe they&#039 ; ll, you know, try it and, you know, expand their palate on that. But, for the most part, I mean, most of. Probably half to three quarters of the Asian menu are items that are authentic to the Chinese culture. And the Chinese/Japanese culture. So, then we did introduce a few items to to the non-native, non-Asian clientele. So yeah. So absolutely, you know, you got to have items on there that, you know, people are going to order and you have to have a few items that you think, &quot ; Hey, this might work and this&#039 ; ll, you know, expand people&#039 ; s palate to other tastes and flavors&quot ; and give it a shot and if it doesn&#039 ; t work. Just take it off. |00:34:44| Brody So, I mean, even just in light of your dad&#039 ; s background and in Japanese culture and Japanese food, and the food that that they were serving was kind of a fusion in a way, way before people were using the term fusion. Was- when talking about authenticity, did you run into any questions or people trying to have difficulty maybe understanding where the Japanese piece of it was coming into the Chinese menu? |00:35:17| Kang Yeah. So we, we have a lot of ramen on our menu at one point, at Kang&#039 ; s Cafe, I believe my dad had probably had over 30 different types of ramen and by ramen it&#039 ; s not, I don&#039 ; t mean the ramen that is trending now. Right? It&#039 ; s not like the, the sliced pork belly and, uh, the soft boiled egg and the seaweed and the corn. It&#039 ; s...So this is where the Chinese aspect of ramen comes in, in that all of our toppings are stir fried in the wok first. So the meats and the veggies and whatnot, you know, they&#039 ; re, they&#039 ; re, they&#039 ; re sliced, they&#039 ; re cut up, they&#039 ; re stir fried in the wok, and then they&#039 ; re, they&#039 ; re laid on top of the noodles and the broth. Whereas a traditional Japanese ramen, right, the pork, the pork belly, that&#039 ; s cooked ahead of time, the eggs cooked ahead of time. And then, you know, once the order comes in, they cook the noodles and then put it in, put it in the broth, and then take the slices of toppings and put it on top of that. So ours was, you know, we incorporate, incorporated that Chinese part of it, right, where we stir fried everything in the wok first and then laid that on top of the noodles and the soup. The broth was very similar, you know we had our, our pork broth. We had a shoyu broth, the soy broth and so broth were, were similar, but the toppings were not. So it was, it was a different experience. |00:37:01| Brody That&#039 ; s really interesting. So when talking to people about Asian food and you mentioned earlier that a lot of your customers are foodies. One thing that seems to have happened in Dallas is that just at the time that the Asian population grew, people in general started getting more interested in eating things from other countries and cooking with things from other countries. So did you find that your customers were pretty, either curious or educated about the types of foods that you were serving? |00:37:40| Kang Yeah. So they would, you know, every often they would venture and order something off of the Asian menu. So they, they wanted to try something different. But I think in the restaurant business, in, probably in the majority of restaurants, you know, you&#039 ; ll have regulars that will always just order between one to two or three different items that they know, that they&#039 ; re comfortable with, that they&#039 ; re familiar with. I think as a, I think just in general human nature, we just like something that&#039 ; s, you know, within our comfort zone, I think the majority of people don&#039 ; t want to step out of their comfort zone and try something different. And if they don&#039 ; t like it, then, you know, &quot ; Oh, man, I should have ordered whatever, Sesame Chicken.&quot ; So that, that I did notice that quite a bit. I mean, that&#039 ; s, you know, that&#039 ; s just the nature of things. You know, when I go out to eat, I tend to always order the same items as well, unless I&#039 ; m really feeling adventurous that day. But generally I&#039 ; m not. You know, people want comfort, right? People want something that they&#039 ; re familiar with. You know, it&#039 ; s like an old friend. It&#039 ; s like going and seeing an old friend. |00:39:02| Brody So what does authenticity mean to you? The concept of authenticity when it comes to food. |00:39:11| Kang In general or are you talking about, like, Chinese food, like authenticity? |00:39:18| Brody Yeah. Either. Either way. In general. |00:39:20| Kang I think authenticity is using authentic ingredients. I try not to either dumb down flavors or overemphasize certain flavors. For example, I don&#039 ; t know, let&#039 ; s just say Sweet and Sour Chicken. You know, there is, there is a traditional Sweet and Sour Chicken version, and it&#039 ; s not red. And it&#039 ; s not red and it&#039 ; s not as sweet. It&#039 ; s actually a bit more sour than the Sweet and Sour Chicken you&#039 ; ll find in a typical Chinese restaurant. But somewhere along the way, probably back in the mid 1900s when the Cantonese moved to New York, that&#039 ; s when they brought over a lot of the recipes and, for some reason it turned really bright red through the use of food coloring and it became very sweet and just a heavy batter. And I think that that&#039 ; s probably a result of their clientele...Their clientele at that time was kind of what they wanted or that&#039 ; s what the restaurant owners thought they wanted, you know, like a heavy batter, like a fried chicken type batter. Right? As opposed to, like, a lighter batter. And so, yeah, I think, I think, you know, in the past ten years, with the explosion of different cultures in Dallas and ethnicities, you definitely see more restaurants are kind of sticking to their, you know, the, the traditional flavors and ingredients and then just not really, not really trying to accommodate and through no fault of their own, but not just, &quot ; Hey, like, this is what we serve,&quot ; and because I think they know that they have the clientele to support that, you know, for example, Szechuan cuisine has exploded in Dallas in the past ten years. And so they, they still keep it really spicy and all the chili peppers. And because there&#039 ; s been an explosion of Asians that have immigrated to Dallas, you know, starting from all the students that have studied at UTD, just a ton of exchange students, and which they eventually stay here and, you know, expand their family and whatnot. So it was around, I would say probably the around the 2010s or just a little bit before that, when you really saw a large influx of of Asians. |00:42:29| Brody So that&#039 ; s interesting. You mentioned, you know, that &quot ; authentic&quot ; to you means, in a way, not dumbing down certain flavors. And that example you just gave of, you know, restaurants sort of sticking to, you know, whether it be really spicy...What, when you say &quot ; not dumbed down&quot ; like, do you think that there&#039 ; s a flip side to that of sort of, you know, the word you used earlier was &quot ; approachable,&quot ; that there are some items on your menu that are more approachable. Is there a sort of, in your thinking about the food that you&#039 ; re serving, a gradual introduction that you&#039 ; re trying to do to to get people to to move towards more adventurous eating by trying things that are more approachable to start with and then venturing forward or out. |00:43:23| Kang Oh, you mean like starting with one dish first and, you know, running that as a special and... Yeah, we&#039 ; ve done that in the past when we&#039 ; re you know, introducing a new item. For example, like years ago we introduced Singapore rice noodles and so that, that did really well. I didn&#039 ; t know how people would take that because of the, the curry in it. But that did really well. And then I introduced a Thai Basil Noodle and that did really well as well. And then Thai Coconut Curry, which was one of our most popular dishes now. And, you know, just, you know, not and not certainly, certainly not just limited to Chinese dishes, of course. You know, got just a few Thai dishes and stuff. So just kind of giving them a variety of, of Asian, of Asian items on the menu. |00:44:39| Brody That&#039 ; s interesting. Do you...You mentioned that your, the restaurant was really convivial, really, you know, sort of vibrant at its peak, with people celebrating birthdays and things like that. Were there things that you did like special events for cultural holidays or things like that? |00:44:59| Kang We did not. We did not only for the fact that around the holiday time, whether it be Chinese New Year or Western New Year or Christmas, we were always jam-packed. Always jam-packed. And so, there was no need in order to bring in extra business that we couldn&#039 ; t handle. Right? We were at max capacity at that, you know, around the holidays. So it was just, you know, serving a bunch of ducks. Think our record for a day serving in the restaurant was we served, like gosh, nine...almost 90 Peking Ducks in a day. |00:45:55| Brody That&#039 ; s a lot of ducks. |00:45:56| Kang That&#039 ; s a lot of ducks and that&#039 ; s a lot of carpal tunnel in the wrist at the end of the day. But it was worth it, though. It was fun. And, you know, it&#039 ; s just yeah, it was, it was great. |00:46:09| Brody Back to the ducks. You mentioned that they were Grade A Long Island ducks. How did you decide on that sourcing and what is it the suppliers that you... |00:46:18| Kang So when my dad was in the process of sourcing ducks back when he had Kang&#039 ; s Cafe, he had went through six or seven different brands and grades and not varieties, but just different grades, different brands of duck. And, you know, most of them were quite fatty. They were on the cheaper side as well. And so he came across this particular duck and really liked how it tasted, really liked how the fat, most of the fat would render during the cooking process and just leave the skin crispy and the meat nice and, nice and juicy. Yeah. Because I do hear comments from our customers and, you know, they&#039 ; ll say, &quot ; Oh, you know, we tried duck at such and such place. And it was just, it was too fat and it was really greasy. And, you know, yours isn&#039 ; t like that.&quot ; And yeah. So, yeah, we do, you know, it costs us more for, for the ducks, but you know, the duck, at the end of the day, the customers do notice that and they appreciate that. |00:47:33| Brody Have you been using the same supplier for the whole time or has it changed and varied just so you can keep track of I mean, keep getting those kind of ducks. |00:47:40| Kang Oh yeah. I&#039 ; ve added, I&#039 ; ve added a few suppliers over the years. Because there...Well, I learned my lesson when my main supplier was out of ducks one time and I was like, &quot ; What?&quot ; That was a stressful moment. And so... |00:47:59| Brody I&#039 ; m sure. |00:48:00| Kang So yeah. So then I had to start shopping around other, other suppliers and they, they had to get those ducks specially in for us because like I said, it was, it was a higher cost item and none of the other restaurants were using that, that brand or that quality of a duck. |00:48:17| Brody So your dad retired in 2005. Did you take over everything at that point? |00:48:23| Kang No. So he had sold Kang&#039 ; s Cafe in 2005, which was a great call because that was out in Irving and I was living in Plano at the time and I had just moved to Plano. So the for the first four years of running Mr. Wok, I was living out in Coppell, and that was a painful drive every day. But so anyway, so I had just moved, I moved back to Plano and then he decided to sell Kang&#039 ; s Cafe and I said, &quot ; Yeah, go for it. You know, you&#039 ; ve been doing this for over 20 years. You know, it&#039 ; s time to retire.&quot ; And, you know, I didn&#039 ; t want to run both of the restaurants, and I wanted to solely focus on Mr. Wok. And that property is ours. It&#039 ; s, you know, a freestanding building. So, you know, a little, a little less stress in terms of, you know, don&#039 ; t have to deal with a landlord or, you know, rent or...So a little lower overhead. |00:49:25| Brody So at that point, your family owned that building? Initially, it was a lease. Correct? |00:49:31| Kang Yeah. Yes. So they leased it from Pizza Hut for the first few years and then they purchased the building. |00:49:42| Brody Great. So you took over and so did you, had you studied or other than being in the restaurant growing up, had you, did you feel experienced and ready? |00:49:59| Kang No. I mean, you&#039 ; re never really ready for...You&#039 ; re never really ready for any job, I would say. But no, I majored in HR down at UT-Austin. And that was just corporate HR, so it wasn&#039 ; t, it wasn&#039 ; t a restaurant management program. So, no, I mean, I was, you know, I came, came into the restaurant, after I graduated and was kind of learning the ropes from my parents at the time. For about a year, about six months to a year, and then one day they just threw the keys at me. No they, they, yeah. So they, they wanted it to truly get out of the business then, and so I took over and, and, you know, I learned a lot, along the way as well. |00:50:52| Brody Yeah. What were some turning points for you? |00:50:57| Kang Turning points. So our biggest turning point was in 2006 when we had an excellent write up in the Dallas Morning News. And so that kind of trip started everything. You know, I said up until that point we hadn&#039 ; t really advertised or anything. It was just all word of mouth. So that exposed a lot of people. So that was a big turning point. The other turning point was bringing in, bringing back the Peking Ducks, back from Kang&#039 ; s Cafe. You know, moving the duck operations to Mr. Wok and that single handedly did...It was, I don&#039 ; t know, what&#039 ; s the word? Tremendous for us. So, so that definitely. Yeah. So those two turning points, I would say are the biggest turning points of Mr. Wok 2.0. 2.0 being when I came in and started managing the restaurant. |00:52:06| Brody Speaking of the Dallas Morning News and reviews and write ups, what...That one was notable. Were, do you have any stories or any memories related to reviews and reviewers in your restaurant? |00:52:26| Kang I mean, I always had a hunch who the reviewers were because, you know, it&#039 ; d be, let&#039 ; s say two of them, two people would come in, they, you know, ask to see the Chinese menu, they&#039 ; d order ten, ten items. Ten dishes. You&#039 ; re like, &quot ; Wait, wait, hang on, that&#039 ; s like way too much food.&quot ; And they&#039 ; re like, &quot ; No, no, no. You know, it&#039 ; s fine. We can take it home.&quot ; So that&#039 ; s very rare, right? So that sticks out. And they would and, you know, I would, I would chat with them and, just, you know, get to know them. And...But no, I never had a, I was never positive that they were the reviewers until that the review came out and I said, &quot ; Oh, okay, that, that&#039 ; s the dishes that they had.&quot ; You know, then I put two and two together and yeah. |00:53:17| Brody So, so the good reviews really did bring more customers in. |00:53:20| Kang Yeah, absolutely. The good reviews. We were in the Top 100 in D Magazine. We won best Chinese restaurant in The Observer one year. Of course, Dallas Morning News, the top ten Chinese restaurants. So I&#039 ; d like to say we did the trifecta, the trifecta of print media in Dallas. |00:53:45| Brody That&#039 ; s great. So that&#039 ; s the official, you know, the official media. What about with the advent of social media and review sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor and things like that? What is your, what are your thoughts about that development? |00:53:58| Kang Yeah. So that definitely helps as well. Of course, that&#039 ; s a double edged sword, right? If you don&#039 ; t do well, if you don&#039 ; t, you know, if you&#039 ; re, if you&#039 ; re lacking in service or food or atmosphere, whatever, and people are going to write about it on the social media sites. But if you do you know, do a good job and people recognize that and people see that you&#039 ; re you genuinely enjoy what you&#039 ; re doing and you&#039 ; re trying your best...You know, I mean, every restaurant is going to have an off night or two, right? And so, you know, if they visit the restaurant on those off nights and they write a negative review, then, you know, most of time I&#039 ; ll go on there and you know, try and explain what happened you know, offer them a second chance to dine in with us. But, yeah, social media that&#039 ; s been huge, right? I mean, that again, that&#039 ; s free advertising, that&#039 ; s word of mouth, that&#039 ; s just getting your name out there. Of course, you know, we dodged the whole COVID bullet because we were closed due to the fire. And, and so during that time, there&#039 ; s that Facebook group, Asian Grub in DFDub, that&#039 ; s I don&#039 ; t know how many members now there are probably over 50,000 members, I don&#039 ; t know. But that grew exponentially. And so and I know that&#039 ; s helped quite a bit of, of Asian owned businesses and restaurants in general. And so, yeah, if I do decide to reopen, that will be a big part of getting our word out that, &quot ; Hey, we&#039 ; re back in business.&quot ; |00:55:44| Brody So, if you feel comfortable, tell me about the fire and sort of the aftermath of that for you as a restaurant owner. |00:55:55| Kang Yeah. So the fire happened on a Satur...Sunday night, overnight on a Sunday night in the morning, into Monday morning. We&#039 ; re closed on Sundays, so I didn&#039 ; t step foot in the restaurant all day Sunday. I got a phone call from my alarm company four am Monday morning. And, you know, they were saying, &quot ; Oh, the alarms going off.&quot ; And, and we get some false alarms every once in a while, like once a month, once or twice a month would get just a random false alarm. And then so I assumed it was a false alarm. Plus I was...I had gone to a concert the night before, so I probably wasn&#039 ; t in any shape to drive anyway. So, and then, so I just told them to cancel the alarm and then, the next morning, you know, I got up around ten and, and my, and my food supplier, the rep, the food rep calls me and she&#039 ; s like, &quot ; Oh, the driver, the delivery driver is trying to drop off your order, but he said you had a fire,&quot ; and I was like, &quot ; Huh? Okay.&quot ; And so in my mind, I had no idea what the extent of the fire was. I...No, no, no...Like, I didn&#039 ; t hear anything from anyone besides that phone call from the alarm company. And so I was like, &quot ; Oh, well, just go ahead and tell the driver to, to, to drop it off. Right?&quot ; And then she calls back a minute later, she&#039 ; s like, &quot ; Uh, no. There the fires and it&#039 ; s, it&#039 ; s a serious, you got some serious damage.&quot ; I&#039 ; m like, &quot ; Oh my God.&quot ; So, I&#039 ; m freaking out. So in my mind, you know, like, to me, like, the whole building has just, like, been, you know, just leveled to, to, to rubble. But, so then around that time, I, you know, I&#039 ; m getting myself dressed, I&#039 ; m running out the door. My, my staff calls me because they, they get there around that time and they&#039 ; re, you know, they&#039 ; re like, &quot ; Oh, yeah, there was a fire, you know?&quot ; And I&#039 ; m like, &quot ; Yeah, I&#039 ; m on the way, you know?&quot ; Luckily, I live really close by. So I get there. I pull up, pull into the parking lot and don&#039 ; t really see any damage. I was, that was not what I was expecting. You know, it looked fine from the front of that the street, from the front of the parking lot. Everything looked good till you pulled around and then, yeah, once we went inside the back door to the kitchen it was, it was. Yeah, it was all burnt. So, turned out it was an electrical fire. And so, yeah, that was...It was, it was shocking. Yeah, I, I, I&#039 ; ve never been through anything like that before. So, you know, we got through it. It took almost two years to remodel. And, you know, but I wanted, I had a certain look that I wanted, and so it was actually a blessing in disguise that we were able to, build it back better than what it was. |00:59:09| Brody Yeah. That must have been really stressful and scary, though. |00:59:12| Kang Yeah. |00:59:14| Brody So the, the, the new look that you&#039 ; re talking about, the remodel that came as a result of the fire damage. What are the, like what is the vision that you have for the restaurant going forward? You know, you have a loyal clientele, you have, you know, regulars and so forth. But with this new look and this feel, what are your hopes? |00:59:42| Kang I just want everyone to, you know, come back in and be able to experience what they, you know, what they experienced back in the past, but in a more updated modern environment. And, just that&#039 ; s all I can ask for. |01:00:00| Brody Are you making changes to the menu? |01:00:04| Kang I plan on taking some items off, that weren&#039 ; t big sellers. And so it just makes it easier to, to get into to streamlined training and because, as you know now, there&#039 ; s a labor shortage in the restaurant industry. And so, you just kind of want to make things easier and faster for the employees to be able to learn and pick up. |01:00:41| Brody Yeah. During its peak, did you have among your clientele any celebrities or any any sort of really notable stories that happened in the restaurant? |01:00:51| Kang Yeah. So we, we did have some Dallas Cowboys that would come in and they tried, they tried cracking open that Beggar&#039 ; s Chicken. And for us, you know, it was the 320 pound center back in the day, Phil Costa. He was one of the five cowboys that came in and, you know, I hand him the mallet, and he&#039 ; s sitting there beating it and you can&#039 ; t crack it open. And, like, the whole restaurant is just cheering him on, and he couldn&#039 ; t do it, through no fault of his own. It&#039 ; s, it doesn&#039 ; t actually crack like, like an egg, like you would think it would just crack and all fall apart. But it&#039 ; s like the outermost shell is, is, what&#039 ; s the word? Is not crisp, not crunchy but I don&#039 ; t know...the word escapes me. But, because it&#039 ; s so thick, like beyond that first quarter inch, it&#039 ; s somewhat pliable. So, so it doesn&#039 ; t really all just crack. But anyway, so that was a fun experience. We had a one night one of our regulars brought in four of the Dallas Stars and they ordered four Peking Ducks between the five of them. They ordered four Peking Ducks. And they almost finished all of them. They ended up having to bring about one, on the plane on their, their road game the next day. They brought a duck and they had that on the plane. |01:02:29| Brody Wow. That&#039 ; s impressive. |01:02:30| Kang Yeah. Yeah, we have Ichiro Suzuki, who was a wonderful player for the Mariners. He, he came in. Of course he ordered Chinese-Japanese items and, just a really nice guy that&#039 ; s really down to earth. And, you know, just a lot of like local, famous celebrities, chefs and whatnot. So yeah. |01:03:06| Brody Did you ever run into any discrimination or racism in running these restaurants? |01:03:15| Kang No. No. We were very fortunate. Of course, you know, we&#039 ; re by nature, we&#039 ; re open to every custom, nationality, ethnicity. So there was never anything that I can think of off the top of my head. Of course, you know, it helped that I speak perfect English or I hope I speak perfect English. And so people wouldn&#039 ; t have, you know, I don&#039 ; t know. They wouldn&#039 ; t have a reason to discriminate or I don&#039 ; t know if my parents ever experienced that or not. They...I never heard any stories or anything like that. And we&#039 ; re very hospitable restaurant owners, right? Being the owner myself, I was down in the trenches helping out staff or if they were ever in the weeds, I&#039 ; d help them out. And I always make sure to, to greet most, if not all of my customers and then, you know, get to know them and get to know their names and their families. And so we that also helped grow our clientele quite a bit, just that personal touch. And that&#039 ; s not something that...I think that&#039 ; s something that you&#039 ; re either born with or you&#039 ; re not. You know, you, you either enjoy meeting people and talking to people and being quote unquote servant. You know, you&#039 ; ve got to have that servant mentality to, to, to be in this business, right? It&#039 ; s a, it&#039 ; s a people business first and foremost. It&#039 ; s, a second...It&#039 ; s a food business, right? You just happen to be serving food, but it&#039 ; s a people business at the end of the day. |01:05:13| Brody And you&#039 ; re...This is sort of the same type of thing you&#039 ; re talking about, but I wanted to ask you about what your philosophy around hospitality is. |01:05:24| Kang Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, you&#039 ; ve just got to be, you just got to respect people. You have to want to please people. You have to want to be able to go out of your way to do what you have to do to make sure that they&#039 ; re taken care of and that they want to come back. And just getting to know them. Yeah. Just getting, getting to know the customers. That&#039 ; s, that&#039 ; s a big deal to them. You know, customers like to be recognized when they come in, right? And they&#039 ; ll bring their friends and they&#039 ; ll be like, &quot ; Oh, hey, hey, Jack.&quot ; You know? And so it makes them look good when they know the owner, right? But I don&#039 ; t do that. I don&#039 ; t get to know them because of that fact. Right. It&#039 ; s just. It&#039 ; s just who I am. I just love talking to random people and meeting them, and, hey, you know what? At the end of the day, they probably drove by ten other Chinese restaurants to come to ours. So we&#039 ; re extremely fortunate and honored that they would, that they would do that. Right. So, you got to pay it back. |01:06:49| Brody When you&#039 ; re thinking about your employees, right? When you talked earlier about training and, you know, sort of trying to streamline the menu a little bit to help with training. What are the main things that you&#039 ; re looking for when you&#039 ; re bringing someone on board to be to be part of your restaurant family? |01:07:14| Kang Yeah. So first and foremost, you want them to have an outgoing personality. Of course, you know, you can&#039 ; t be a server if you&#039 ; re always in a bad mood or you&#039 ; re, you know, if you&#039 ; re not comfortable speaking in public or speaking in front of strangers. So you want to look for that. Essentially, you want them to be an extension of yourself, right? You know, you can&#039 ; t be at every table at all times. But you want them to understand what your culture is, the restaurant culture. And you just want them to, to be as respectful to customers as you are. And, you know, there&#039 ; s a famous Maya Angelou quote and you&#039 ; ve probably heard this and let&#039 ; s see if I can remember it very well, but it&#039 ; s, so it goes something like, you know, ten years from now, people won&#039 ; t remember what you said or what you did, but they&#039 ; ll remember how you made them feel, right? And so that, like, imprinted me, imprinted on me, when I first started at the business because that&#039 ; s how people might not know what, might not remember what they ordered, or might not remember what your Sesame Chicken, what your Sesame Chicken tasted like, but they remember how, how nice you were to them and how and how well taken care of they were. So... |01:09:01| Brody Yeah. That&#039 ; s really. That&#039 ; s, that&#039 ; s nice and true. People remember how you made them feel. So what are the next ten years like for you in your business? |01:09:17| Kang Well, currently we&#039 ; re kind of in limbo in terms of reopening. There&#039 ; s some litigation that we&#039 ; re having to work through. Once we get that done, I&#039 ; ll be able to have a better understanding of where we are in terms of reopening. I got commitments from my back of the house that they&#039 ; re going to come back. I mean, it&#039 ; s been over three years. So I&#039 ; m really grateful that they&#039 ; re, that they want to come back and work. Front of the house, the majority of them have moved on, which I, you know, I don&#039 ; t blame them. They&#039 ; ve all actually, they&#039 ; ve all gone on to bigger and better things, you know, I&#039 ; m extremely proud of them. My assistant- no, she wasn&#039 ; t- I didn&#039 ; t have an assistant manager, she was kind of my lead server and she kind of ran things when I wasn&#039 ; t there- but she is planning on going to, going to law school and some of my other employees, they&#039 ; ve, we&#039 ; ve had a lot of our younger employees, some kids in high school, you know, they&#039 ; ve since graduated high school and they&#039 ; re either in college or working at an office type job or I think one person&#039 ; s in the fire academy going to be a firefighter. And so yeah, they&#039 ; ve all even one which I won&#039 ; t name, even certain ones that I didn&#039 ; t really think were going to do anything in the next five years, they&#039 ; ve, they&#039 ; ve really stepped up and changed their lives, so I&#039 ; m extremely proud of them. |01:11:04| Brody That&#039 ; s great. |01:11:05| Kang Yeah. And that&#039 ; s all I can hope for. So when I do reopen, it&#039 ; ll probably be a completely new brand, front of the house staff, which will be challenging at first. But hopefully, people will understand and so they won&#039 ; t be able to see the other familiar faces that they&#039 ; re used to out front. Except me, but we&#039 ; ll get through it. |01:11:29| Brody That&#039 ; s great. In the remodel, did you change anything about, like, open kitchen or anything like that? |01:11:36| Kang The layout. We- no, it&#039 ; s not an open kitchen. We did change the layout within the kitchen itself. Just kind of where the dishwashing area is. Changed that. I added a seating bar where there used to be a waiting bench, but I&#039 ; ve since added a little bar with, like, four bar stools, so customers would come in and they can, while they&#039 ; re waiting to be sat, they can go and open up their wine and start enjoying. |01:12:12| Brody So you&#039 ; re going to stay BYOB? |01:12:14| Kang Oh, yeah. Yeah, BYOB has really, really helped us. You know, you know, getting the word out, you know, people seek out BYOB. There was a time, actually...So for the longest time, the building in the area was not zoned for alcohol. But back in the mid 2000s, the city of Plano had rezoned that area, and so I was actually up at the TABC office, filling out the application because in my mind I wanted to get a beer and wine license and then I forgot to bring a certain paperwork or something so I couldn&#039 ; t hand it in there. So I brought it back home and then just kind of slept on it and then never went back and never turned in that, the application. And you know, looking back on it, I, that was the right decision, I think because, on any given weekend, I don&#039 ; t know, 80, 90% of our tables bring their own wine in, bring their own alcohol. So it&#039 ; s. Yeah. |01:13:44| Brody Did, do you have much competition? I know you&#039 ; ve been sort of in a limbo for a little while between the fire and everything else. But in the meantime, have other places that you would consider competition sprung up? |01:13:56| Kang Oh, yeah. Yeah, I&#039 ; ve, I mean, I&#039 ; ve seen at least two or three other restaurants that serve Peking Duck. They&#039 ; ve popped up. I&#039 ; ve never, I haven&#039 ; t tried them, so I don&#039 ; t know how they&#039 ; re, they&#039 ; re quality of duck, you know, compared to ours. Compared to ours. So, I can&#039 ; t speak to that, but yeah, there&#039 ; s just there&#039 ; s been a lot of other restaurants and not just ducks, not just restaurants that serve Peking Duck, but just other Chinese restaurants in general. And those are your direct competitors. And then you have indirect competitors that are just restaurants in general. Right? If we&#039 ; re not going to have Chinese tonight, we&#039 ; ll have Mexican. We&#039 ; re not having Mexican, we&#039 ; ll have Indian, you know, that&#039 ; s a direct competitor. Right? Because they&#039 ; re choosing somewhere else over your restaurant. So, yeah, just a lot of new restaurants have popping up. |01:14:51| Brody Do you have, is there a strong community among Asian restaurant owners in Plano or in Dallas? |01:15:06| Kang I&#039 ; m sure there is. I know a few Chinese restaurants and Chinese restaurant owners, but those are the ones that have been in Dallas for as long as we have. And so the new ones, no, I don&#039 ; t really know a bunch of the new ones. Of course, when I was in, when I was running the restaurant, I never had time outside of the restaurant to, to socialize with other restaurant owners much. You know, we were fortunate that we were closed on Sundays, but that was family day for us. That was spending time with the wife and the kid. And so, yeah, I mean, during the week it was just restaurant. |01:15:55| Brody Yeah. It&#039 ; s a lot of work. |01:15:56| Kang It is a lot of work. The restaurant business is extremely time consuming and labor intensive. Yeah. If you do it right, if you enjoy what you&#039 ; re doing, it&#039 ; s, quite rewarding. You know, you get, you get instant feedback. Right? You serve a dish. You can see and tell right away if, if the customer enjoys it or not. You get to meet new people all the time. And like in our case, they, a lot of their customers became friends and family of ours. And, I do miss that. I, I tremendously miss that aspect of, of the business. |01:16:47| Brody So. So would you characterize your restaurant as a &quot ; mom and pop,&quot ; or do you think about it in a different way? Or what does a &quot ; mom and pop&quot ; restaurant entail to you? |01:16:59| Kang It&#039 ; s still a &quot ; mom and pop.&quot ; You know, to me, it&#039 ; s still a &quot ; mom and pop.&quot ; You know, it&#039 ; s, we&#039 ; re independently owned. The owner, me, I&#039 ; m there every day, all the time. You know, when and if I do reopen, I will try to hire a manager because to take off a lot of my load, a lot of load off of me, and I&#039 ; ll be able to at least take more than just Sunday off, since the kid is at the age where he&#039 ; s, you know, got a lot of activities going on. So, but yeah, no, absolutely. We&#039 ; re still, we&#039 ; re still a &quot ; mom and pop.&quot ; I don&#039 ; t ever want to expand. This is not something that I&#039 ; m looking to do. You know, it&#039 ; s, you do lose some quality in an expansion. You do lose some of the personal touch. Yeah. And I&#039 ; m not, you know, if people, people that have expanded and they&#039 ; ve done well and I mean, that&#039 ; s great to figure out the formula, you know, where you&#039 ; re not as involved in the day to day as I am. But yeah, so it&#039 ; s kind of, it&#039 ; s kind of a double edged sword. You know, me being inside the restaurant 70 hours a week, that&#039 ; s obviously been able to keep an eye on the quality of the food coming out of the kitchen and, building up the relationships. But at the same time, I don&#039 ; t want to expand because you do lose that, that part of it. |01:18:48| Brody In a nutshell, what would you, how would you characterize your brand? |01:18:55| Kang That&#039 ; s a good question. It&#039 ; s, you know, I think our brand is a...It&#039 ; s a independently owned restaurant that enjoys serving great food and has a fun time serving great food. That our guests and customers come in and they have a wonderful time, and it&#039 ; s, it&#039 ; s just, it&#039 ; s not...I don&#039 ; t know. It&#039 ; s not like any other Chinese restaurant that I&#039 ; ve been to, you know, it&#039 ; s, it&#039 ; s just people just come in and have a, they end up partying with us. It&#039 ; s, it&#039 ; s just, you know, it&#039 ; s like Cheers. Like the show Cheers, right? You know, like, everyone knows your name. You know, they come in and, hey, we call them by their names, and, it&#039 ; s comfortable. It&#039 ; s, after a long day of work for them, they come in and they, it&#039 ; s like their second home. And so that&#039 ; s, we&#039 ; re a laid back restaurant that provides good food and great hospitality. |01:20:26| Brody You&#039 ; re right. That&#039 ; s so...That is different that people are partying with other tables. |01:20:29| Kang Yeah. |01:20:30| Brody What? Why do you think that happens? |01:20:34| Kang Well, for one thing, because we&#039 ; re able to seat around 80 people inside the restaurant and with the three round tables and then the surrounding booths, the proximity of a table to the next table is a lot closer I think than, than other restaurants. So just naturally, if a large party of 12 is celebrating a birthday and they&#039 ; re, you know, taking shots or whatever the full extent, they&#039 ; ll ask the table next to them, &quot ; Hey, do you want to take some shots or try some wine?&quot ; and so they ended up, they end up just sharing their alcohol. And that&#039 ; s where the BYOB aspect really comes into play and that people I think are more willing to share their wine that way. No, that&#039 ; s my, that&#039 ; s my take on it. |01:21:42| Brody Do you think the duck has something to do with it? Sort of the way that that&#039 ; s served and eaten? |01:21:47| Kang Oh, yeah. I mean, everything is family style, right? And especially with the duck. That&#039 ; s not served for a party of one. The duck itself, as one entree, among others, it basically counts as three, three entrees. So, yeah, a party of four ordered one duck, a party of eight will order two. And then, so everything&#039 ; s served family style. We got the big lazy Susans, around the round table and stuff, so people just...Yeah. No, you bring up a good point. Yeah, I didn&#039 ; t think about, remember the lazy Susans. But. yes, yes, absolutely. People...it&#039 ; s, it&#039 ; s very, it&#039 ; s a communal experience. Yeah. |01:22:44| Brody Were you all affected by any of the weather incidents in the last few years, the tornado or the ice storm? |01:22:51| Kang No. Luckily, we dodged those bullets. We that was all after 2019. So. No. Yeah. No, we were we were fortunate to dodge that. And then we dodged COVID as well. |01:23:09| Brody Yeah. That. I mean a silver lining. |01:23:12| Kang Yeah, I can&#039 ; t imagine. And, I can&#039 ; t imagine if I was still in business during COVID and, having to pivot to, all takeout and delivery and, and all that. So it was, hats off to the other restaurant owners that have to deal with that and, you know, had to go through that and lay off their employees and all that. I mean, that&#039 ; s hard. So, I guess the silver lining in that fire that, you know, that&#039 ; s the bright side of the fire. |01:23:48| Brody And the remodel was facilitated. |01:23:50| Kang Yeah. And the remodel and exactly. You know, the remodel happened right before the whole you know, happened towards the start of COVID. But we&#039 ; ve dodged the supply chain issues, too, and the rising cost of the materials and labor. So, yeah, thank God that that was, that we got all that over and done with too, before, before what&#039 ; s going on now. So. |01:24:19| Brody Yeah...A lot of silver linings there. |01:24:22| Kang Yeah. |01:24:23| Brody Well looking back at your time in your parents&#039 ; restaurants and also running your own, what are some lessons or reflections that, that you might have? |01:24:39| Kang You really got to enjoy what you do. You, you really ought to be able to sacrifice a lot of your time and a lot of your family&#039 ; s time if you&#039 ; re married. It&#039 ; s not, you know, the restaurant business isn&#039 ; t one of those that you just open from day one and you hire someone and you&#039 ; re an absentee owner because, you know, without going into any stories what those tend to be, tend to fail faster, quicker. You know, it&#039 ; s not as glamorous as it seems. You know, you&#039 ; ve got obviously you&#039 ; ve got all these cooking shows and restaurant shows and they&#039 ; ve, those have become increasingly popular in the last 10 to 15 years. And, obviously what you see on TV is a lot different than what happens day to day. Yeah, you just, you&#039 ; re just gonna have to sacrifice. It&#039 ; s not, it&#039 ; s not normal hours. You know, when people are eating, you&#039 ; re working. When people are asleep, you&#039 ; re just getting off of work. But, at the end of the day, I wouldn&#039 ; t, I wouldn&#039 ; t trade it for anything else, you know, you got to be, you got to have that passion for it. And when you don&#039 ; t is when you got to get out of the business and do something else. |01:26:11| Brody That&#039 ; s great. Thank you for that. Is there anything that I did not ask you today that you wanted to add to this interview? |01:26:28| Kang No, I think I think what I touched on just a minute ago, I think that&#039 ; s probably the most important thing. I mean, I see these up and coming restaurant owners, and they&#039 ; re, they have the passion and have they drive, and that&#039 ; s great. You know, there are obviously using a lot of social media to their benefit, which is great. I mean, that&#039 ; s what it&#039 ; s for. But I just hope they don&#039 ; t get burnt out too soon. Right? And they know how to kind of sit back and take a breather every once in a while, because burnout in this industry is extremely common. And it&#039 ; s...Well, as with any job but the restaurant industry in particular, it&#039 ; s not just physically demanding, but it&#039 ; s mentally demanding. Right? You know, physically you&#039 ; re on your feet the whole day, right? You sit down and eat, try to scarf down your food and five, ten minutes, then you&#039 ; re back on your feet, you know, doing your job. You know, mentally you&#039 ; ve got to deal with a number of not only inside factors, but outside factors, right? And you got to deal with the licensing part of it. You got to deal with the city part of it, the health department part of it. You know, doing all your payroll, unless you have an accountant. But, it&#039 ; s like running any small business, right? You&#039 ; ve got to wear many hats, you&#039 ; ve got to be a jack of all trades. So I&#039 ; ve actually learned quite a bit of handiwork. A lot of plumbing, some electrical, just being things will go out on a Friday night. Your AC will go up and you&#039 ; ve got a house full of, full of guests. And what are you going to do? So it is a lot of thinking on your feet. It is tremendous. It is a lot of thinking on your feet. It is a lot of putting out fires instantaneously. A lot of deadlines that pop up that need to be solved in the next 5 minutes. So, it does teach you quite a bit of problem solving. |01:28:58| Brody Yeah, that&#039 ; s really interesting. People don&#039 ; t think about all the different pieces of it. |01:29:03| Kang Yeah. You know, 2014 I think was when we had that really hot summer. You have like over like 70 days of 100 degrees. And so, kitchen coolant was going out. Refrigeration. I had to replace our AC, had to replace the compressor on our walk in cooler, had to get a new freezer...It was that was a costly summer, but I wasn&#039 ; t the only one dealing with that. There were other restaurants that were dealing with that. There were homeowners that had to replace their ACs too. So that was just that was a brutal, that was a brutal summer. But, yeah. At least I dodged the snowmageddon, the freezeageddon two years ago. So. |01:29:48| Brody That&#039 ; s lucky. |01:29:48| Kang Yeah. But yeah, you just got, just got to have a passion for it. |01:29:57| Brody Well, thank you so much. This has been so interesting, and I&#039 ; m really happy to learn about your family&#039 ; s story and hear about your thoughts about what&#039 ; s been going on the last few years in your restaurant. |01:30:09| Kang Yeah, absolutely. My pleasure. Happy to be here. |01:30:12| Brody Thank you so much. |01:30:12| Kang You&#039 ; re welcome. All rights to the interviews, including but not restricted to legal title, copyrights and literary property rights, have been transferred to the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. audio Interviews may be reproduced with permission from the Baylor University Institute for Oral History. 0