Episode 152 - The Donut King with Ted Ngoy
In the late 90’s, Dunkin’ Donuts found it so hard to break into the Los Angeles donut market that they gave up. Why? Because of The Donut King.
Ted Ngoy has opened over 70 donut shops in an effort to give Cambodian refugees a chance to earn a living and make it in America. At one point, his donut empire netted him over $20 million and a presidential award for achieving the American Dream from George H.W. Bush.
Then, he lost everything. Listen in as “Uncle Ted” takes us through every up and down of his unbelievable story.
Episode Transcript
*Some listeners have found it helpful to have a transcription of the podcast. Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it. The FDE movement is a volunteer-led movement, and if you’d like to contribute by editing future transcripts, please email us.
Ted Ngoy: I know each time when I went through pain, I know he has another plan for me, each time I went through a difficulty, I knew something going to happen to me. So now I know that we have another plan for me and I don't know what's the plan. I pray so many times before I came for this interview, I said, Lord, I just like Moses. I'm no good speaker and I feel shy. I don't know how to push testimony all together. I don't want to disappoint you. So please, I ask you to put his words in my mouth.
Rusty Rueff: Hey everybody. Welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. I'm Rusty. Henry, William and myself are pretty excited to give you today's episode of FDE because the story you're about to hear is one filled with suspense, love and romance. Fascinating experiences, some almost hard to believe, but all believable because our guest tells it just like it is. You see, in the late 1990s, Dunkin Donuts found it so hard to break into the Los Angeles donut market that they just gave up. Why? Because of the Donut King. Ted Ngoy has opened over 70 donut shops in an effort to give Cambodian refugees a chance to earn a living and make it in America. At one point, his donut empire netted him over twenty million dollars and a presidential award for achieving the American dream from George H.W. Bush. Then he lost everything. We want you to listen in is Uncle Ted takes us through every up and down of his unbelievable but believable story. Henry, take it away.
Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. Back here in our virtual headquarters in I'm here with my co-host and partners, Rusty Rueff and William, and I think that we're looking at podcast for something around maybe one hundred and fifty stories now, guys.
Rusty Rueff: Amazing. Amazing. You know, this is our first recording in twenty, twenty one. So we have to give William one moment, even though people will be listening to this later to go ahead and gloat a little bit about his Alabama Crimson Tide. Whatever you whatever they roll down there. Go ahead. Go ahead.
William Norvell: Well, you know, I feel like I personally added a lot of value to the team this year. So, you know, this is one for me is the way I think about it, the other five or six. But I feel like I really came to play this year. And so it's it's a big year. It's a big
Rusty Rueff: year. Nice to have the 12th man right here with us.
Henry Kaestner: Absolutely. Absolutely it is. I've been looking for this podcast. You know, there are a couple of things that I think we all universally like. One is documentaries. We love stories. I love stories. There's a new documentary out, by the way, called Boys State that if you haven't seen it is very, very much worth watching. William Rusty and I haven't
Rusty Rueff: seen I actually went to Boise State in Indiana when I was in high school. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm looking forward to seeing it.
Henry Kaestner: So I wish I had it as good of a documentary. It's almost as good as the Donut King we're going to talk about making, but it's unbelievable the way that was done. The other thing, of course, we love our donuts. I've got a picture of my boys and their grandfather, Kimberly's dad, in front of the same donut shop every summer in East Hampton, New York. And it's just it's what we do. We go out with grandpa and we go get donuts. And I think that those are two things that are universally loved. And, of course, on that theme building into that, we had the Donut King with us on the podcast this morning from Cambodia, which is just awesome. There is an incredible story that's out and it's the Donut King is incredible documentary. It's got incredibly high ratings on Rotten Tomatoes in the 90s and for good reason. It's just an incredible story about an incredible man and God's faithfulness to him. It involves the president of the United States. It involves the thing we all love to eat, involves the American dream, involves entrepreneurship. It talks about a community coming together and it's a thing of beauty. And so we've got Ted with us on the program. And Ted, it's it's just a great honor to have you with us. Thank you for joining us.
Ted Ngoy: Thank you for having me. So and it's great honor to be on this show.
Henry Kaestner: Well as we start, as we do with all of our guests. Take us through your story from the beginning. What's unlike most of our other guests, as most of our other guests didn't grow up in Cambodia where you're now back, you're now back in Cambodia. But take us back there. What was it like living there? And then how did you eventually make it make it to America?
Ted Ngoy: I was born in nineteen forty two during the World War Two and really in a small, poor village near the Thailand border, and my mother moved from China after she got married to my father and she came to move to live in Cambodia when she was 18 years old. And she doesn't speak any Cambodian language. And unfortunately, my father left us when I was four years old and then my mother have to raise us in a difficult situation. And later, because the war erupted in nineteen seventy, later my father asked pardon for my mother and my mother forgave him and he came to live with us again. But then when the war erupted in 1970, my parents and my two sisters left behind right after the Khmer Rouge regime to overpower in 1970. And during the war I was major in the army and my job was to oversee the new soldiers train in Thailand. So after that, we send them to the battlefield. So when the Khmer Rouge took over the country in nineteen seventy five, we chose to go to America as refugees.
Henry Kaestner: That's an amazing story and there's great movies. I think The Killing Fields and others just talk about it is a very, very brutal time in our nation's history. And you had that obviously that first receipt for that and and must have been absolutely amazing. I wanted you to just share a little bit about what it was like living during that time. I think that here in America were pretty distant from the Vietnam War. We've been involved in different wars in the Middle East, but nothing that really just completely just enveloped in uprooted society in such a cataclysmic way. What was that like? Was it like to live through that and and be a participant in that? What are your reflections now 40, 50 years later?
Ted Ngoy: Yeah, during that time, I was young and the war started in 1970. Before that, the [...] is called a piece of island very beautifully until the war erupted in 1970. And during the puppet regime, there was about three million people slaughtered by starving by my mother and by letting the medicine is a cruel, of course, very cruel to compare where we live nowadays in America or in Cambodia. Yeah.
Henry Kaestner: So I want you to tell us about the story about how you met your wife. I believe it had something to do with you playing the flute on your balcony every night and then throwing a note attached to a stone or something like that. Tell us about your wife.
Ted Ngoy: Well, when I was in high school in a French school, my wife, Suganthini, she belonged to a high ranking official like a princess in Cambodia, very rich and very powerful family. But because they're both beautiful and I kind of fell in love with her. But then I don't know that villa, prestigious villa right in front of that small apartment I rent. My apartment is about four story and her villa is about a hundred and two hundred meters away. So every night I love playing the flute and then every night I just blew it, especially after [...], because in that time to in Phnom Penh being so small, there's no car, no motorcycle, just bicycling, walking. And when I blew it, the whole town can hear it. And later I found out, oh, two hundred meter for me is a big villa that's belong to Suganthini Villa. So I start blowing every night because I knew she lived there, but I dare not talk to her in the classroom. But then one day I saw many people around the balcony. her villa, I just grabbed a stone into the paper and I know. So I threw all the way to her balcony and terrace up to the building. And luckily she picked up the note and one week later she sent a maid to my building. I don't know how the maid, 17-year-old, found my apartment because there's no lift there's no elevator. So I'm so happy. I said, oh, she got my note. And then she wrote, I heard your flute and it's very beautiful. And my mother always told me, oh, some guy must fall in love with somebody very romantic. And then and then I heard that I said, wow, beautiful. Then I know better than that. So when they met wait for me to pick up her note and said back to her, then just very little, I want to be your friend. That's it. Because I like so many thing, because I do not know, because I'm from countries, men, my money from Chinese descent. So I kind of shy and also scared. And then she turned, you know, she said, well, uh huh, very good. Yeah, we can write the note. So we write back and forth, back and forth several times. So one day I saw her. I know. I say what if someday I don't see I for one day I, I will come to your room and come to your house. And when you think and then very reassured she said, well I don't think you can do that. What happened if you jump to the wrong room, to my mother's room and she's just joking because she's only 17 years old. She doesn't know how to love we love yet it's obvious to me that I was twenty, I think 21 or 22 years old. So that time I look at the window, look palm tree and coconut tree, how to get to her room. The next door, also a villa, belong to a French doctor. There's a dog, a guard, a security guard and soldier beneath her villa. So when it's raining hard two or three o'clock in the morning, I come from the French villa, climbed the coconut tree, go through the barbed wire and then go looking for her. Then I wake up. They're almost on the roof of the of the villa, but I couldn't find any door, any window open. But luckily there's one. I just tried to open it open. So I come into it in the bathroom and then I think I should I go back home. I said no. I said no. When I make up my my determination, I must go forward, then turn left. There are many rooms, like ten room which I belong to her. So I turn in the first room. I thought that must be her, that day I did not believe in Lord Jesus yet. I just someone in the heavens guide me to the right room. But then when I open the door and then I saw a young lady, a long haired black haired facing the wall. But I kneel down for about half go for half an hour for I will have 20 to 30 minute kneel down. I dare to touch her. Maybe that's not her wish, her cousin or sister. But then I say, well, I must touch your hair slowly. And then she turned to me and she said, "I'm going to cry and cry. Who's that? Go, go away." I said, please don't cry. If you cry, I must be [...]. I must die. So what are you doing here? I think well. Because I love you, and then she said, what I want to do in the morning when I go to school here and there, and I said, don't worry, I will hide under your bed. I did. And it hurt bad for forty five days. Then and later her parents found out and then, oh my God, I don't know what to do. I just jump through the window and run away.
Henry Kaestner: I'm sorry. You said you, you, you waited under her bed. For how long.
Ted Ngoy: For forty five days.
Henry Kaestner: For forty five days??
Ted Ngoy: Yes I did. Yes, because every time she asked the servant young men to brought me some food here and a young young girl and when you already ate and then you asked me to buy more food for forty five and later this young girl told her mother that there's a man hiding under the bed of your daughter because she afraid to be punished, you know. Yeah. And just like that. So I ran away and then cut the story short. My, my mom had come from village and she said to us pardon her parents. There is no way because I either put your son in jail, he must have trouble. But if your son wanted to be free and then your son must listen to me and repeat what we say. And she said, first you meet with my daughter, and you just said, I do not love you. I'm a playboy. No, I never love to go to school and please go back to your parents. And then after I repeat that, I just pull out the knife. I stabbed myself in the blood so her parents and called the ambulance. And my Suganthini, she took the sleeping pill. She went to commit suicide. So lateron her parents allow us to be together. That's my story.
Henry Kaestner: All right. I'd like to crowdsource this a little bit. If you in our listening audience have a better story of meeting your wife, I want to hear it. Unbelievable. I'm thinking it's this mix in my mind. Of course, I'm thinking about movies. Of course, it's a mix in my mind of like Mission Impossible meets Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon meets Romeo and Juliet. I mean, all is. Unbelievable. That's a that's an incredible story.
Ted Ngoy: Thank you
Rusty Rueff: So.. I don't even know how to Segway, but we but let's hear exactly. But let's let's let's move into the business world, Ted, and let's talk a little bit about how you became the Donut King. So how'd you get involved in a donut shop? How did it start? Take us through all of that. And and and if there's any stabbings or stuff like that, make sure you put that in there, too.
Ted Ngoy: Yes, we chose to go to America as refugees. So when we arrive in the camp, we got a sponsor from the Lutheran Church and brought us to the testing capacity in California. And we live there. And as a custodian, the church paid me 500$ to clean the church and mow the grass. And then I asked the pastor, I said it's not enough for a family of eight people. So I asked for another job. So the pastor of the church had brought me to meet the owner of Mobil Gas Station. And then we make an agreement. I will from 10 to 6, 10 and at night to six o'clock in the morning. So I've got two jobs that pay me, also 500. So later I asked for another Part-Time job for Bura Emporium. They pay me something like a two hundred dollar. That's from six to ten. So I've got three jobs at a time. And then at the Mobil gas station, there's a small DK donut shop, so take out a window shop. So one night my co worker during the busy weekend, we only have two people attending the gas. So he asked me to watch the gas station and he went to the donut shop to get some donuts and he said, "Ted, you want some?" And I said Andy, what is that is a sweet donut. I don't know. I never tasted donuts I left home since a long time, since six, seven months. So I never tasted any pastry and also be hungry for some sweet stuff. And that taste when I said very good Andy can I take some home for my family? Of course, that's all enough for me. I took it to Suganthini and my children. Oh, they all love it. And then the next time, the Monday night, that's a slow night. So only me attended the gas. Then I went is quiet moment. I went down to the that window I saw a lady donut another day serving the counter. I asked the lady: Please, if I can save for three thousand dollars you think I can buy a shop like this, I test water. I don't know the value. I don't that so I don't know anything about it. I just see it is a crazy no you don't have to pay doing it and you're going to throw away, you're saving. What are you going to do. Islamorada the Winchell's house headquarter. You know, they recruit and manage your training. I say, wow, that's what they do. And then make no money when I get home. And Suganthini told me a I saw a Winchell sign not too far from where we live. So we bow to the Winchell and we talk to the manager. And you're the manager. He said, yes. When you won, it said, can you tell me where is the Winchell headquarter? Because I need a job. So OK, you say it, Lambretta. Then the next day I talk to my sponsor. I said, Sir, you think you can take me to Lambretta Winchell's headquarter? And he said, No, no, where you want to go there you got three job. I say the donut shop sounds better for me. If I can run a donut shop, my whole family can go together instead of me. Run around and get three job. Well, let's try. And then he took me to Lambretta headquarters headquarter, talk to the manager and then he said Ted is a good guy. He's a working hard and he's major in the army in Cambodia. Is the refugee I was could sponsor him. He should be good for Winchell. And then the manager said, you know, we never employ or recruit any people from that kind of work, from Asia, from Southeast Asia. And we were the first one that he said, well Ted, are you ready? I like to say yes. And we said, in fact, I did not sleep for all night already, but then I say, I don't want to lose that opportunity. And then he put me right away to teach me how to bake, to clean the window, clean the bathroom and and try to learn how to order the supply. So I feel so good, then I got three men training, so it may be November prior to Christmas, I go to a store, Winchell's donut shop in Newport Beach that was a slow store, but is perfect for my family to run. That's how I get to do that business. Wow.
Rusty Rueff: Wow. So I suspect that Winchell wasn't used to people just showing up and saying, hey, I want to get in the donut business. So that's extraordinary just there that that that door would open up for you. So now you've transitioned over and you've got your first donut shop and talk our listeners through because our listeners are entrepreneurs who take businesses from an idea, you know, to try to grow it and scale it in, but at the earliest of days, trying to understand what's going to make a business successful. So take us through what made that first donut shop successful. And then when did you make the idea and when did you feel confident to start to scale?
Ted Ngoy: Well, I have to thank Winchell for the opportunity to train me and giving me a shot, and then as I always want to own my own business, as I ask that you say three thousand dollars, can I open a donut shop with three thousand dollars after one year of saving? I got about thirty thousand because I baked, Suganthini over the counter and then my cousin and nephew come to have the clean and then we don't hire anybody. There's no payroll. We're making, we're serving. So we saved all the labor and then I saved about thirty thousand for first year. So that that thirty thousand they police come to the donut shop. I say, sir, I know I got some money from saving in America. Is there any way to buy a shop like a donut shop. So. Oh yeah that's easy. So we went out to grab a reduced newspaper and he looked at the business opportunity here. Look at the section of the donut shop and grocery store and liquor store for sale. So I looked at the donut shop. Oh, I found one and say, oh, here they only sell for forty thousand. I said, well, it's a good one. And then I asked my wife and go to La Habra, the first shop we bought. It's called Christi's Donut. That's my my wife's name. When she got American citizenship, she changed from Suganthini to Christie. Get the name from the donut shop. So we negotiate and then we put twenty thousand down and we give no for three, four, five hundred per month payment. So we got a donut shop. So when we get ten dollars I still hold on to that Winchell's so I got to shop to run. So with the income combined I got over forty fifty thousand dollars per year.
Rusty Rueff: That's pretty. That's amazing. That's amazing. And then when, when did you make the decision that one shop could turn into two or three or ultimately up to 70?
Ted Ngoy: Yeah, well I think in nineteen seventy five we have about fifty thousand refugees coming from Cambodia to America. So that's a stepping stone for my dream because you know, in a donut shop we need labor. We did a lot of help and and that time because all our fellow Cambodian American, they don't have jobs because looking at. But no, no. You can only on to and now at that time. So it's hard to try a job. So I invite everybody to learn how to make Donat and to settle down and open donut shop. I call it the general. I call whoever I know from Oregon, from Texas, Washington, Seattle. Everybody come to learn and I pay some money because I want to help them because they are refugee like me and my countrymen. And then we opened a store in Fullerton and when they opened, I also train people and my wife Christie also show people how to take care of count, place the order stuff. So. So that's how we go from one, two, three, four, five. Very, very smoothly because the people and besides when we get a strong foundation. Then in nineteen eighty there's a second wave of refugees. That number will increase double one hundred thousand because you know after the Pol Pot regime fallen and so refugees could escape so total year we have now in America is about one hundred sixty thousand Cambodian workers. And because an increasing number of demand and that's how we can increase muscle fire so quickly, it's spreading around.
Rusty Rueff: I love that. I love that. And so you've built up Christi's. You've got all these stores by anybody's measure. You know, you're quite successful and things are going great. Walk us through how you handled that success and how how did life change for you and your family?
Ted Ngoy: Yeah, we so happy and we never dream about getting that kind of lifestyle and the luxury of life. Never. You know, when we come to America in the hope of getting a job and raise our family, that's all. But now when I see the opportunity, I feel like a power of outside for me. But I do not know who at that time yet. But I just know that it is not coincidence is something pushing me or helping me? But I don't know is that but very happy. No one in my life is getting better then when to everybody have a job number three, I can help my countrymen to grow as me.
Rusty Rueff: But at some point, as we know in your story, things didn't stay on the same. Trajectory and things changed. So you want to take us through kind of what happened when you started making trips to Las Vegas?
Ted Ngoy: Well, you know, when I you looking busy with my family, with Christy, with everybody, there's no political life, there's no religious life, no social life. Just work, work and work. So one day a Cambodian friend say, hey, you already work so hard, why not take some time off. Why not go to Las Vegas with me. I say, where's that? Las Vegas is the only four hour drive from Los Angeles to Las Vegas and say, well, you said fun. I said, yeah, you should you can see this show and listen to music. And they don't mention about gambling because I don't like gambling. I don't know how to gamble with them. And first time. Oh, my God. So exciting about lighting about the street, about, you know, about the whole thing. And we see a lot of shows, music show, dancing show and magician show. So but then the second and third time we just play a little bit on the blackjack table, five, ten dollars. It's not much. But then I become addicted and become a compulsive gambler. And that makes me sorry. And the remorse for the whole life that destroyed my happiness, destroyed my family and almost destroyed my life. And I thank God that God help me to clean up. Took me 40 years like Moses to rescue these people from Egypt, took 40 years to go to the Promised Land and took me for the future. But thank God he cleaned me and free me from the devil. That monster in me, I fought and I won. Thank God for the mercy and grace.
William Norvell: Amen Amen Ted William here. Thank you for sharing that. And if I could ask you to take us a little deeper into that journey with God, where along that journey did you meet Jesus? Where did Jesus insert himself into your life? Just kind of walk us through your relationship with God during this journey that he's taking you on?
Ted Ngoy: Well, I would say the love and my faith with Lord Jesus, I would say in two segments. One is prior to nineteen ninety two was after 1992. Why I say that? Because I only know Jesus in nineteen ninety I got baptized. And let me begin with my mother. My mother not only give me birth teaching me and raise me in the hard way, but she also brought me to Lord Jesus salvation. I have to thank her now. She's with the Lord Jesus into heaven. So it's 92 to I left California, returned back to Cambodia to do politics in Cambodia. So prior to 1992 to I had the knowledge about Lord Jesus, but after ninety two then I know the Lord Jesus a lot and start to know him after ninety two because 93. I participated the first election in Cambodia but in two thousand two because of political dispute. My life not safe in Cambodia. So I was forced to live in exile back to California from 2002 to 2005. And that's a moment I know Lord Jesus because really without him I could commit suicide many, many times. And in Long Beach, I stayed there for three years and there's no housing. I live from church to church and every night I learned Bible. Every Sunday we go to worship Lord in the church and I say, Old lady of the church, let me stay the porch of her mobile home. And when I get to shower, I have to know the door and she open the door here coming to take a shower. So when they're ready, she don't door Uncle Ted now come in. So that's how I fall from Donut King to zero. I left my young children and young wife in Cambodia and I cannot afford to send her much money. So I feel sad and sorry. But I fought and I survived again so in two thousand five I went back to Cambodia, both in Cambodia. Then I think first time I've become penniless. Nineteen seventy five as a refugee, six and 10 after a political campaign election. All these I become penniless again in 2002 when living in exile in America and third time two thousand seven. I found out my young wife had an affair with somebody and I took the two young children. So I went to live in a coastal city called cape province and now I don't have any penny again. So three time I live in penniless one, two, three. So after 1992, I knew Jesus very well. Without him I wouldn't be standing here today in the cape city every night I ate a pack of noodles two children and me and no shelter, no home. So that's how difficult I am facing. Many, many time very miserable way. Then somebody say is there a church in cape city. They said yeah there's one. So I went all the way by bicycle. I borrowed a bicycle took my two children. So it's about 40 kilometers per day without food at night and shelter at night. But anyway, we struggle through the hardship. And then I found the pastor. I say pastor, where's the church? that should say here, right here. I said, oh, and then the wooden house. And at one o'clock Sunday afternoon, people get together like a villager and family, about 10, 20 people. So you can actually watch it. You say, oh, welcome. So I bought a little orgen and every time I went to church, I play orgen and people sing. We have joy, we have so much and we keep praying. Someday Lord will allow us to make enough money so we could build a church until 2010. Then I got some money. I built the church right there the first church and now we've got another land called [...] province. So pray that someday when the funds available, we'll build another church and new one second one. So that's how I know that somebody is helping me along the way. Now I know who is that. His name is Jesus. So I really want to stay with him and get close to him at the end of my life.
William Norvell: Amen Amen. Well, what an amazing story you've walked us through from being born during the war to leaving to owning, I think you had, 70 donut stores at one point and fended off Dunkin Donuts to to coming into your market to to sort of struggling with addiction that, you know, so many of our listeners have struggled with various parts of addiction. We did an episode a while back on addiction specifically and how the enemy can tempt us with so many different things, back to finding the Lord and starting small churches and seeing him thrive and meet people in those ways. Recently, as we mentioned in the intro, you did a documentary called The Donut King. Could you maybe share with us just a minute or two? How was it like to to relive those stories, to relive your life through this filming?
Ted Ngoy: Yeah. Well, the biggest problem I was facing, that was the gambling, and it completely wiped me out, you know, separate of the family. I just first hurt my wife, Christy, my children and hurt many, many other people, too, because, when we needed money. I go to borrow. I never will be able to pay back. And I feel so much hurt. And when the documentary took me back to America to see all the donut shops, to see the villa, the mansion that I use to live in and the deluxe condo in Newport Beach and you go back to Las Vegas, you know, just feel remorse. But there's nothing I can do except I thank God he came in new life and I'm very happy and peaceful now.
William Norvell: Thank you. And Ted, as we so we come to a close, you may not know. Our final question is always along those lines. We love to ask and see how God connects our listeners and our guests through his word, through the Bible. And I would love to ask you if there is a scripture or a story from the Bible that maybe God has been using in your life during this time. And if you wouldn't mind sharing that with our audience,
Ted Ngoy: I know each time when I went to pain, I know he has another plan for me. Each time I went through a difficulty, I knew something going to happen to me. So now I know that we have another plan for me and I don't know what's the plan. I pray so many times before I came for this interview, I said, Lord, I just like Moses. I'm not a good speaker and I feel shy. I don't know how to put the testimony all together. I don't want to disappoint you, so I please put his words in my mouth. So now I don't know what to say except that I love Jesus. I would sacrifice my love my soul to him. And I know one day I will want to live very close to the second church that I will build and now we just wait for the funding. And I would like to buy a house right by the church so I can live close to him and serve more and spread the gospel and good news about him. I just want to follow Jesus,
William Norvell: yeah, Amen let him give the words to speak. That's that's the Jesus I know. I don't do it well sometimes, but that's the one I know.
Rusty Rueff: What a great testimony and story. We really appreciate it.
Rusty Rueff: Thank you for sharing your story. Thank you for your faithfulness. Thank you for your prayers for our podcast and for our listeners. And just just grateful for you.
Ted Ngoy: Well, so, so much grateful for having me. So thank you.