Where is donut king

On one of his Las Vegas trips, Ngoy took up gambling. It was small amounts first but he was soon blowing bigger figures and he couldn't seem to stop. Perpetually in need of cash, he'd ask the people running his donut shops for loans. Since many of them had gotten their start in the business — and the United States — thanks to Ngoy, they were happy to help.

When he couldn't pay them back because he had gambled the money away, Ted signed away his ownership stake in those stores. One by one, Ted lost all of his donut shops. Gu is working on developing a couple of music-themed film projects, both documentaries and narratives. One involves reggae and another focuses on Puerto Rican musicians. Ted and Christy are divorced.

Christy has remarried and lives in Lake Forest, not far from their three adult children, who all live in Orange County. Ted resides in Cambodia where he splits his time between Phnom Pen and Kep, a province in Southern Cambodia that's famous for its crab fishing industry. Nine Lives. He has found his way to be wealthy again.

Now, he is in real estate development," Gu says. Chuong Lee, who has run DK's Donuts since , is officially retired although she occasionally helps out at the shop. Her daughter, Mayly Tao, has taken over the reigns of DK's.

After earning a communications degree at UC San Diego, Tao worked for a while at a news station but wasn't enthused about that career path. At loose ends, she returned to Los Angeles and, once again, started helping with the family business.

Over the last few years, Tao has rebranded the shop with a colorful, hot pink logo and experimented in the kitchen, producing eye-catching, Instagram-friendly creations and original flavors. I always thought of it as a Plan B to come back and now, it has become the Plan A — and more," Tao says. COVID has hit her store — and most other shops — hard. If there's anything she wants people who watch The Donut King to know, it's that this seemingly simple treat has a deeper cultural resonance.

Oh, and stop for a donut and say "hi. Support for LAist comes from. Become a sponsor. LAist logo. We Explain L. The Brief. How To New LA.

Search Query Show Search. Stay Connected. Keep up with LAist Our top stories delivered weeknights. Share This Facebook Twitter. By Elina Shatkin. Published Oct 29, AM. Ted Ngoy in The Donut King documentary. Courtesy of Greenwich Entertainment.

LAist relies on your reader support, not paywalls. Freely accessible local news is vital. Please power our reporters and help keep us independent with a donation today. All Rights Reserved. Documentaries Available to Watch Now. Documentaries coming soon Watch Trailer. Watch Trailer. More Info. Ted's parents and sisters fled across the border to Thailand, and Ted got a call from the US embassy there asking if he would sponsor them to live in the US.

Naturally he agreed, and set his sisters up with doughnut shops. More and more relatives came forward for sponsorship. I think there's nothing wrong for them to lie to the embassy because everybody needs a chance to survive. So, I just did it. As many as I could. Over the years, Ted and Christy sponsored more than families, often hosting them before setting them up with homes, loans, and doughnut shops.

Ted encouraged others to do the same. The Cambodians worked hard and because the whole family pitched in, they did not have to pay out any wages. It provided a path for refugees to settle and was a profitable business model.

Eventually Cambodians owned so many doughnut shops in California that they dominated the market, pushing Winchell's into second place. It's something Ted feels a bit bad about. By , 10 years after arriving in the US as refugees, Ted and Christy were millionaires, owning around 60 doughnut shops. Ted became known as the Donut King - or Uncle Ted, because of the many Cambodian immigrants he'd sponsored. The couple had flash cars, bought a million-dollar mansion with a pool and an elevator, and went on holidays abroad.

The gambling is sad, the saddest part of my life. The first few times he and Christy visited, on early family holidays, everything went well: they watched a magic show, they saw Elvis perform. But on a later trip Ted had a go on the blackjack tables, and soon he was hooked on the glamour and the adrenaline.

When time goes by it gets into your blood and you just cannot get it out," says Ted. I did not have time to expand. That's a disaster," he says. Christy would search for him in the casinos, the children in tow.

Ted remembers hiding from her behind the slot machines. Whenever Ted won, the family would rejoice with him. When he lost he would lash out, smashing doors, breaking furniture and frightening the children.

Then he would return to Vegas in an attempt to win back what he had lost. It's a monster in me. Christy always forgave him, but word got around that Ted could no longer be trusted. Some of those he borrowed from were the people he had leased doughnut shops to.

When he lost their money he would just sign over the shop to them - without telling Christy, whose signature he forged. Ted did try to curb his habit. He joined Gamblers Anonymous but was back at the tables in no time. Everybody cry," he said. Twice he joined a Buddhist monastery.

He shaved his head and spent three months barefoot in Thailand, coming back emaciated and a changed man - or so he thought. But within weeks he was back on a plane to Vegas. I was addicted to a feeling, and money was simply the needle that delivered the toxic dose," he writes in his autobiography, also called The Donut King.

Eventually he and Christy were left with just one doughnut shop, which they decided to sell. Their youngest son Chris drove them there to pick up the money - but it went horribly wrong. All three were taken to the police station but they were too scared to mention the cash in the boot. When they were released, the cash was gone.

In Ted and Christy moved back to Cambodia. They had lost their beautiful home and their chain of shops, but still had enough money to live comfortably. Ted now had a new passion - politics. Cambodia was having its first democratic elections since the war and he wanted to stand for office to help rebuild his country.

Besides, he reasoned, as a politician he would not be able to gamble. When people know about the bad reputation, people are not going to vote for me. So I decided to change. At the height of his success in the US he had been an ardent Republican, and an enthusiastic fundraiser for the party.

So he named his own political party the Free Development Republican Party. But the name was misleading. It led many voters to assume, incorrectly, that he was against Cambodia's royal family, and he didn't win a seat. He was, however, invited to become a government adviser on commerce and agriculture. Cambodia was poor and under-developed after years of war.

Inspired by the economic success of Taiwan, Ted decided to lobby the US for "most favoured nation" status, which would open the door to foreign investment. But while she was gone Ted had an affair. Devastated that he had broken their pact, she filed for divorce. By Ted was broke.