Gold Star Donuts on Whitfield Avenue in Sarasota belongs to a quiet empire. The shop, which has been frying fresh doughnuts since 1989, is Cambodian-owned, according to Sun Newspapers columnist Sue Wade, who profiled the phenomenon of Cambodian-run doughnut businesses across Florida in a Tuesday, July 22, column.
It's one of at least six such shops Wade identified statewide, part of a tradition that traces not to Sarasota but to a single refugee's arrival in Southern California more than 50 years ago.
A penniless refugee builds an empire
Ted Ngoy fled the Khmer Rouge in 1975 and arrived at Camp Pendleton through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program. By 1977, he had purchased his first shop, Christy's Donuts in La Habra, California. He went on to own 32 locations and sponsor more than 100 Cambodian refugee families into the business.
"It spread like wildfire. So fast, so fast," Ngoy said in the 2020 documentary "The Donut King," as quoted in Wade's column. "President Bush Sr. flew from the White House to give me a presidential award for achieving the American dream."
By the 1990s, approximately 1,500 Cambodian-owned doughnut shops operated in California alone, according to PBS SoCal. As of 2020, around 80% of the state's roughly 5,000 independent doughnut shops were Cambodian-owned, according to documentary director Alice Gu in a BBC News interview.
Ngoy's gambling addiction eventually cost him his empire. His story became a cautionary tale for the thousands of Cambodian doughnut entrepreneurs who followed him.
The tradition reaches Florida
Dawson Keo, new owner of Venice's Yummies Donuts, told Wade that Cambodian families dominate the independent doughnut market. Keo's father, Van Kim, fled the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s, launched his first doughnut shop 30 years ago in Texas, and now co-owns Fray's Donut House in Pinellas Park.
Wade identified Gold Star Donuts, Sip N' Dip near Orlando, Hole In One Donuts in Lakeland, King Donut & Deli in Daytona Beach, and King's Donuts Deli in Mount Dora as Cambodian-owned shops operating across the state. The current owners of Gold Star could not be independently confirmed for this report.
A menu that tells a migration story
Gold Star opens as early as 5 a.m. and serves apple fritters, cinnamon rolls, bear claws, croissants, and fresh doughnuts. It also sells kolaches, the savory Czech sausage rolls popular in Texas.
That last item is telling. Wade noted that kolaches on a doughnut shop menu are a marker of Cambodian ownership with Texas roots, a small detail on a laminated menu board that encodes a family's journey from Southeast Asia through the Lone Star State to a strip mall on Whitfield Avenue.
Gold Star Donuts is located at 1246 Whitfield Ave., Sarasota, FL 34243. Phone: (941) 755-1225.
