About

Papa Chiang's didn't begin as a business. It began with watching my parents slow down.

For decades, my father cooked. His journey started in Shanghai and continued in New York, where he immigrated in the 1980s and opened Happy Family, a Chinese restaurant in Hell's Kitchen. Cooking was how he cared for his family, how he built a life in a new country.

When health issues made it difficult for him to continue working, something inside of him went quiet. Retirement wasn't something my parents had planned for. 

Years earlier, when I worked at Nolita Market, my parents would visit with homemade pork dumplings. Simple, comforting, easy to eat while working outside on the sidewalk. Vendors would joke that we should open a stall. I always laughed it off. My parents hadn't come to America so their children would follow the same path.

But in 2014, I hosted a few dumpling and wine nights for friends. The evenings were filled with laughter, warmth, and plates of pillowy dumplings. At the end of the night, people asked if they could take the leftover frozen ones home. Then the messages came: Do you have more?

When I asked my parents to make extra batches, I didn't mention that people wanted to pay. I just watched as they became more energized. They had something to wake up for.

What began as a favor became Papa Chiang's an invite-only, pre-order passion project from 2015 to 2020. For half of each year, my parents made dumplings in our Chinatown apartment kitchen while I delivered orders across New York City.

During the pandemic, we stopped and now, ten years after I sent out the first order form, I'm continuing the story. Happy Family didn't end the way my parents imagined, but Papa Chiang's exists because of what happened there.

We're building a place where my parents, and others like them, can gather, contribute, and know they still matter.

Papa Chiang's has always been about more than dumplings.

It's about memory, belonging, and what people still have to give.

Food that remembers.