Video by Jefferson Graham
by Mark McDermott
In 1989, Kim Ngo and her husband Son Dang saw an opportunity on Rosecrans Avenue.
They’d arrived in the United States a decade earlier as “boat people,” a term that was popularized after media coverage showed thousands of refugees fleeing Vietnam, adrift on boats. They were flown to Chicago with no possessions other than the clothes they wore, both amazed and chilled to the bone by the snow they found upon arrival. The couple went to work immediately and went to night school to learn English. A few years later they were able to vacation to California. It was love at first sight, and soon they moved here.
Ngo was working at a nail salon on Highland Avenue in Manhattan Beach when a coworker told her she was selling her little takeout restaurant on Rosecrans, a half block above Highland, called Beach Chinese. Dang was a trained cook, and so together, he and Ngo bought the business. For the next 35 years, the couple could be found each and every day, from morning until night, at Beach Chinese. They took no vacations and very few days off, but in so doing built a beloved local institution that has become part of the fabric of Manhattan Beach.
“The beginning was very difficult,” Ngo said. “You know, hard times. But we survived, and stayed until now. And now, it’s kind of like a very small town, so it is like my family, like my first house. Because I am here every day, 8 in the morning, and we stay until 10, or lately, a little early, like 8:30 p.m.”
They have made quite literally millions of meals for the residents of Manhattan Beach, but now the time has come to close shop.
“It’s time for us,” Ngo said. “Because 35 years is long enough, and also, we are a little old, a little tired. We just want to relax.”
Ngu and Dang had a six month old daughter when they arrived, and later had a son. Their daughter, Michelle, is now a scientist and their son, Kevin, a successful accountant, and the couple now have grandparent duties, and a yearning to travel, especially to finally go back to Vietnam for the first time since they departed four decades ago.
“It’s been 35 years, we have no vacation,” Ngo said. “I never go back to my country. So I want to go back to Vietnam first when I travel.”
Nina Tarnay, a longtime customer who has become friends with Ngo, said her whole family is in a kind of mourning about the end of Beach Chinese. Her kids grew up cherishing the family’s standard order — the ever-popular orange chicken, sweet and sour soup, broccoli and beef.
“My kids are feeling it,” Tarnay said. “It’s more than losing a place to eat. It’s like losing a friend, in some ways. So that’s what strikes me as a big loss to the community, because it’s not just the business. It’s the connection to family, it’s the friendship, and it’s what makes the North End [of Manhattan Beach] so great….It’s part of the fabric, the charm of our hometown, these truly independent, and the very definition of, Mom and Pop businesses.”
Mayor Joe Franklin is also a longtime customer. He said the end of Beach Chinese is bittersweet.
“It’s sad to see Kim go. But it’s also inspiring to see that all of her hard work these past 35 years are allowing her to retire,” Franklin said. “She has worked tirelessly serving others and always with a smile and kind words. We all wish her the very best in the new chapter in her life and thank her for being such a cherished and integral part of our city.”
Tarnay also comes from an immigrant Vietnamese family who worked long hours, like Ngo and Dang, in pursuit of their little part of the American dream.
“I’ve had my own business before. I mean, that is grinding work, every single day,” she said. “You have to care about what you do. You have to love what you do. Because they’re not making a killing on that business. But they’ve done it. When I talk to her, it really struck me, she’s like, ‘You just do it. You put your head down, and you just do the work.’ And you forget how many people, how many lives you touch. Think about all the meals that they have cooked, all the families they have nourished around town, so quietly and without fanfare. For the rest of us, until you lose it, you don’t realize, ‘Oh shoot, this is like a big part of our family.’”
Ngo said that she also has a lot of mixed emotions about the end of this era. “I am happy and sad, together,” she said.
Beach Chinese never joined the digital world. Ngo answers every call and takes every order by hand. Often, she’ll know what the order is going to be just by the familiar phone number, or the address. She knows countless longtime customers just by the sound of their voices, and she’s watched as their children have grown up and returned to Beach Chinese with their own hungry kids to feed.
“The kids are now teachers, they are moms, they are dads, but if they still live in town, they still come here,” she said.
Ngo said she is very grateful to the community for coming to Beach Chinese all these years. She also takes comfort both in having seen the full circle of life at her little perch on Rosecrans, which is also happening as the restaurant closes. A young couple will open a ramen shop at the location. It is among the first stops on Ngo’s travel plans.
“Number one, I will come back to support the ramen here,” she said. “One thing that is interesting is that when we started our business here, my daughter was six months old. The new couple is almost the same, with a daughter the same age, and they will start in November. So I have to eat ramen to support the new owners.”
Thirty five years is 12,784 days. Only a handful of those days have Ngo and Dang not made the early morning drive from their home in Gardena, up over the ridge on Rosecrans to where the beach comes into view, dropping down to just above Highland, where their little hub awaited, another long day unfolding in which they served Manhattan Beach. Next Monday morning, Rosecrans will be a little less vibrant when Beach Chinese does not open its doors.
“You know, we didn’t have to sit in a freeway and drive every day long,” Ngo said. “Fifteen minutes, we already here. So it’s very good. Rosecrans is my street, 35 years.” ER
