The Sweet Success of Phoenix Bakery

On weekends and major holidays in Los Angeles’ Chinatown, you commonly see customers lining up outside Phoenix Bakery on North Broadway, waiting to buy such traditional sweets and baked items as almond cookies, sugar butterflies, and winter melon pastries, as well as the bakery’s signature strawberry whipped-cream cake. For 86 years, Phoenix Bakery’s confections have been featured in the celebrations of countless birthday parties, weddings, and other festive occasions.

The bakery’s iconic logo of a Chinese boy hiding a box of sweets behind his back is one of the most recognizable landmarks in LA’s Chinatown, and it is a lasting symbol of Chinese American art, food culture, and community endurance. In April 2023, Kathryn Chan Ceppi, CEO of Phoenix Bakery and one of its second-generation owners, donated the bakery’s historical archive to The Huntington. No, you will not find the recipe for its strawberry cake among the items, but researchers can trace the bakery’s history through the correspondence, photographs, architectural drawings, and ephemera in the collection.

In 1938, Fung Chow “F.C.” Chan and his wife, Wai Hing Chan, founded Phoenix Bakery on the northwest corner of Broadway and Alpine Street in Chinatown. Born in China in 1909, F.C. Chan came to the United States in 1933 to study business administration at USC. He later joined his father to sell Chinese antiques to American customers. But World War II intervened, creating logistical issues that forced F.C. Chan to pivot his business toward selling baked goods and sweets to the Chinese American community in Southern California.

Phoenix Bakery was one of the first Chinese American–owned bakeries to sell Chinese- and Western-style pastries in the region. The bakery’s initial success—powered by its popular almond cookies—meant it soon outgrew its original location. In 1941, F.C. Chan signed a lease agreement with prominent Chinese American lawyer Y.C. Hong and relocated Phoenix Bakery to the Central Plaza of the recently established New Chinatown. F.C. Chan’s younger brother, Lun F. Chan, a World War II veteran who had studied baking techniques in Hong Kong and Los Angeles, joined the business as head baker in the 1940s. Many of the bakery’s signature pastries were developed under the stewardship of Lun F. Chan, who creatively blended Cantonese and Western baking traditions.

In the 1940s, Phoenix Bakery commissioned Chinese American artist Tyrus Wong (1910–2016), who had painted the dragon mural in New Chinatown’s Central Plaza, to create its logo design. The result was a shy-looking, potbellied boy dressed in pink, turquoise, and purple hanfu (traditional Chinese-style clothing), with his hair partially shaved and twisted into knots, hiding a box of Phoenix Bakery sweets behind his back. The boy was christened Sing Song, and this mischievous and playful mascot has adorned Phoenix Bakery, along with the slogan “Sweets for the Sweet,” ever since.

Ceppi recalls bumping into Wong at a restaurant many years ago, and he proudly showed her the Phoenix Bakery watch that he had received from the Chan family decades before. “He was not only an extraordinary, gifted artist but a humble and gracious person with a great sense of humor,” Ceppi said.

Continuing its tradition of working with local talent in the Chinese community, Phoenix Bakery commissioned LA-based architect Gilbert Leong (1911–1996) in 1975 to design a custom-built bakery at 969 N. Broadway. In 1936, Leong had become the first Chinese American to graduate from the USC School of Architecture. A prolific architect, he helped shape postwar LA architecture through his designs of numerous public buildings, commercial spaces, and private homes. His new building for Phoenix Bakery featured Chinese decorative motifs set in a contemporary and functional structure, while preserving and incorporating Wong’s Sing Song logo design. Fully owned by Phoenix Bakery, the new building alleviated rising rental costs resulting from gentrification and allowed the business to expand. The building also became an architectural landmark in one of the most historic Chinese American communities in the city.

Today, Phoenix Bakery is run by a dedicated group of children and grandchildren of F.C. Chan, who died in 2001, and Lun F. Chan, who died in 2016. Even though several of the second- and third-generation family members lead professional and personal lives outside the bakery, they pitch in whenever they can to ensure that it continues to serve its beloved strawberry whipped-cream cake and other specialties to patrons across Southern California and beyond.

Phoenix Bakery’s historical archive at The Huntington offers scholars insight into the formative years of Los Angeles’ New Chinatown and chronicles the bakery’s outsized impact as a gathering place for generations of Angelenos. In addition, the collection bears witness to the Chan family’s enduring legacy as influential leaders in the Chinese American community.

Li Wei Yang is the curator of Pacific Rim Collections at The Huntington.