‘Is it gonna be busy?’ Woon Pasadena opens in wake of Eaton fire
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- Woon debuted its location in northern Pasadena the week before the Eaton fire destroyed much of Altadena.
- After a closure due to possible water contamination, the family-run Chinese restaurant reopened — but owners now worry for its future.
The first week that Woon opened in Pasadena, lines stretched out the door and down the block every day, guests queuing for bowls of chewy beef noodles or tofu in hot-and-sour sauce. The family-run Chinese restaurant had just debuted its second location after two years of navigating regulations and preparing the space, and the loyal following that owner Keegan Fong and his mother, Julie “Mama” Chen Fong, built in Historic Filipinotown could find a larger second location along the edge of Altadena.
Then the fires started.
Woon’s grand opening was held Dec. 30. It closed one week later on Jan. 7, when the Eaton fire blazed its way through Altadena and the northern edges of Pasadena.
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Woon survived but remained closed due to possible water contamination. It reopened on Jan. 18, but with thousands of homes lost and a community scattered, Fong, like so many other small business owners in Los Angeles, is wondering whether he can sustain the fledgling restaurant.
“I was like, ‘Who are we catering to?’” Fong said. “When we were prepping for the reopening, everyone was like, ‘Is it gonna be busy?’ and I was like, ‘I don’t think so. I mean, 40% of our market is gone, either erased or displaced.’”
Vibrant green-hued wallpaper stretches around the dining room, installed by Fong himself. The new Woon is a labor of love featuring his uncle’s antiques and his mother’s celebrated recipes.
The larger, 2,550-square-foot space allowed for an expanded menu, as well as a bigger retail selection of handmade frozen dumplings, sea moss seasonings and other kitchen staples from the business. It made it possible for Woon’s years-long employees to grow in their roles and alleviated the stress of the small original kitchen, with the new location serving as a prep space for both. The beverage program of sake, wine and beer roughly quadrupled, broadening both the inventory and the kinds of small vendors Fong likes to spotlight.
Fong, a Pasadena native with his own young family, had opened his second location at the border of Pasadena and Altadena to serve the local community, especially those with children. He hoped — and still plans — to debut daytime service for exactly that reason. But after one week in business, everything changed.
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When the Eaton fire began, the restaurateur never thought it would spread to even the broad vicinity of his restaurant, but he sent his staff home early as a precaution. The flames wound up stopping just four blocks north of the new Woon.
“I think someone sent me a video that went viral of Lake Avenue, of Minik Market and Rancho Bar just gone in flames,” he said. “And once I received that, I kind of had a panic attack.”
At that point he was watching his two children at home in Pasadena. His wife, working at Historic Filipinotown’s Woon, said she couldn’t make it to them to watch the kids for another 12 minutes. That wasn’t soon enough. He reached his sister, who lives down the street, and she was there in seven minutes. Upon her arrival Fong took off for the new restaurant with the anxiety of someone whose years of efforts could go up in flames after only one week realized.
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He was running red lights, frantically straining to see into the distance, to see if his restaurant was still standing. When he arrived he darted inside, grabbed cash, then drove four blocks north and witnessed active fires. Texts and calls from friends and family began pouring in, offering their help to move the numerous heirlooms and Chinese antiques on display at Woon in Pasadena. He told them all to stand by as he surveyed the scene.
“I was just watching new houses catch on fire,” he said. “It was so surreal. There weren’t even fire trucks around. I had to take a video because I couldn’t process it. I was just filming like, ‘I gotta watch this later, because I don’t know what I’m looking at right now.’”
That’s when it dawned on Fong: So many local businesses he loved and the community he hoped to become a part of were gone, at least as residents and patrons of Altadena knew it.
Fong called his choice of location “planting the seed”: The Pasadena native chose the Washington Boulevard space for his new restaurant due to its proximity to both his hometown and to Altadena, where he hoped to buy a house and raise his children. That dream, too, is gone — at least for the time being.
More immediately, he’s focused on sustaining Woon Pasadena after losing what the restaurateur estimates to be 40% of his customer base.
He hopes it can make it.
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As the days dragged on through mid-January and Woon was without water, Fong considered “a waterless pop-up” out of the Pasadena space simply to keep his staff employed. The plan would have required a takeout-only menu and the purchase of multiple five-gallon bottles of water to wash the dishes: an “insane” idea, he later reflected, but he was desperate. Fortunately, Fong received word that the new Woon could reopen on Jan. 13.
But they’d been using the Pasadena restaurant as a commissary and as storage for the Historic Filipinotown location in the meantime, so they had to shift things back.
When the Pasadena location reopened the following week, Fong and his team found the response and the energy a far cry from the restaurant’s first days of business.
“The first week we opened, there was a line around the block every single day, and it was exciting,” Fong said. “This reopening was people kind of trickling in, very somber, everyone giving each other hugs. Knowing that just over the building in front of me is [metaphorically] an entire black hole is really weird. It’s a really awkward feeling, trying to serve nothing.”
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Fong characterized the days following the reopening as “death, like zero.” The dining room was nearly entirely empty for days in a row.
He expanded the restaurant’s delivery radius and signaled to Woon’s delivery platform that he would like to participate in promotions to try to entice more online orders.
“I don’t really know what the future looks like,” he said. “We’re really going to have to rely on takeout. That’s kind of our only way. But I don’t know how sustainable that is.”
Still, he considers himself fortunate. Many restaurants were razed in the Eaton fire, including Altadena culinary landmarks and community gathering spaces such as the Little Red Hen Coffee Shop, Side Pie and Fox’s Restaurant. Across the city, the Palisades fire ravaged dining icons the Reel Inn, Moonshadows, Cholada Thai and others.
While grateful, Fong, like many neighboring businesses that survived, wonders what’s next. Woon is locked into its lease, and barely opened; the Fongs have no choice but to continue and hope for the best.
On Jan. 29, for Lunar New Year, both locations set out red envelopes as a giveaway for customers. They served mapo tofu for abundance, green beans for long life, date cake for prosperity and cucumber “coin” salad for good luck.
Woon Pasadena is located at 1392 E. Washington Blvd., Pasadena, and open from 5 to 10 p.m. nightly.
Before the Eaton fire, Altadena and north Pasadena had seen a new generation start new restaurants and food shops and revive old ones. Many of those small businesses were destroyed in the flames. But not everything is gone. There is hope for rebuilding not just structures but a community.
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