The Peculiar Truth about the Donut King of Los Angeles

• 1970: Bun Tek Ngoy was a young military officer in Cambodia who specialized in payroll.

• As a result of Cambodia’s brutal civil war, Ngoy and his family were among millions of refugees who fled the country.

• 1975: Ngoy, his wife Suganthini, and their young children spent time at a refugee camp at Fort Pendleton in Southern California.

• He took on odd jobs and tried to provide for his wife and little children. They were destitute. And they spoke no English.

• He and his wife changed their names to Ted and Christy and learned the language.

• Ted visited his first donut shop and marveled at the fried confections. They reminded him of nom kong, a round pastry he ate in Cambodia.

• He dreamed of opening his own shop and trained at a local Winchell’s Donuts. At that time, Winchell’s cornered the donut market in California.

• Six short months after leaving Camp Pendleton, Ted became manager of a Winchell’s shop on Balboa Pier in Newport Beach, CA.

• Given his past experience with payroll and tireless work ethic, Ted was a natural businessman. His wife and little kids all worked at the shop. There were no other employees.

• 1976: He bought his own donut shop, yet kept managing Winchell’s. He and his family worked long hours at both locations with no days off.

• Within 3 years, Ted had purchased 25 donut shops around greater Los Angeles. He named his franchise Christy’s Donuts.

• Pink cardboard donut boxes were Ted Ngoy’s innovation.

• As the war in Cambodia raged, more refugees fled to the US. Ted Ngoy sponsored hundreds of them.

• He became known among the Cambodian American community as Uncle Ted.

• Soon, Ngoy taught his fellow refugees how to run their own donut shops, and they flourished. Ted took a cut of every business.

• Eventually, Uncle Ted had leased over 60 donut shops in Southern California — exclusively to Cambodians.

• For the past 30–40 years, roughly 90% of all independent donut shops in Southern California have been owned by Cambodians.

• Winchell’s, which had dominated the local market, were outnumbered by Cambodian-owned shops by a ratio of 8 to 1.

• By the mid-80s, Ted was earning over $1 million per year. He moved his family into a mansion and lived the high life.

• From penniless refugee to multimillionaire within a decade.

• The media dubbed him the Donut King.

• He rubbed elbows with Republican politicians who loved his rags-to-riches story, and received a commendation from President George Bush Sr. By every measure, Ted Ngoy was an all-American success.

• Then he discovered Las Vegas. He caught the gambling bug, and everything changed.

• He traveled to Vegas in secret nearly every month, often for a week at a time, and lost crazy amounts of money. Over and over.

• His gambling addiction grew so bad that he asked his Cambodian shop owners to spot him loans, which he then gambled away at Vegas casinos. In lieu of repayment, he began turning over ownership of the donut shops.

• His gambling spun out of control, and his wife Christy couldn’t stop him.

• By the mid-90s, Ted had gambled away his stake in every single donut shop. The money flow was gone. He sold his mansion. He became estranged from his adult children.

• The Donut King went broke.

• So he and his wife left America and moved back to Cambodia.

• After discovering him engaged in an affair, Christy divorced Ted and returned to the US.

• He remained in Cambodia where he became homeless and destitute.

• Ted lost everything.

• He eventually got into real estate in Phnom Penh. He’s rich again.

• In 2020, a documentary filmmaker tracked Ted down in Cambodia and persuaded him to return to LA to reunite with his estranged children and some of the people he helped in the donut business. (The Donut King, director: Alice Gu.)

• The aging Cambodian donut makers in LA are retiring now. But their American-raised children are taking over the shops, innovating, and thriving.

• They owe it all to Uncle Ted, the Donut King.