Photograph by Catherine Viox
More than a decade ago, Susanna Wong Burgess, co-owner of Oriental Wok, went on Caitlin Young’s radio show, and the two have been friends ever since. In fact, their families—which includes Susanna’s sister, Angela Wong Miller, and Caitlin’s sister, Kelly Trush, who currently works at Oriental Wok’s Hyde Park location—would have Sunday dinners together at Young’s parents’ house. Here, Wong Burgess and Young talk about family, legacy, and longevity.
Wong Burgess: I love your creativity.
Young: Oh, that’s so nice!
Wong Burgess: It’s amazing to watch [your] brain work. Sometimes you’re so insular in your own business, but to have a creative genius like [yours]—I’m not saying this to kiss butt—but it’s really true.
Young: I think what I admire the most in you is what you’re saying, the bubble. You’re so in your bubble. It’s easy to have a hard day and a good day and all that stuff, but you just exemplify hope. I feel like you gave me permission to incorporate my family in every element and let them be great at what they are good at.
Wong Burgess: Thanks. My family incorporated themselves only because my dad was like, “Susanna, get behind the bar.” My dad is the archetype entrepreneur. He’s like, “Let’s wing it. You’re going to be bar back tonight.” I’m like, “Dad, I’m 12.” And he’s like, “I don’t care. You’re doing this.” And I’m like, “OK.” You start to panic but then you realize I’ve got no choice. I’m doing this.
Young: You are front of house. I don’t know how you do that.
Wong Burgess: The kitchen is the heart and engine of every restaurant. We’re all looking cute and pretty and my dad buys drinks, but until that food comes out—
Young: No one’s happy.
Wong Burgess: People have no idea the journey of food before it lands in front of them. It is a long, painful journey.
Young: As an owner, I want to tell everybody, “Do you understand we got a bird and we have to brine it?” I want to tell the whole process. And people are like, “Can we just have our sandwich?”
Wong Burgess: I do the same thing. We’re still home making things like our egg rolls and dumplings.
Young: When I told my parents I wanted to go to culinary school, they did not want me to. And I spent all four years of high school convincing them to let me.
Wong Burgess: For me, it was really just a matter of doing what my dad told me not to do. I figured that out now because if I tell my kids to do something, they’re bound to go the opposite direction. He was like, “Under no circumstances should you go in the restaurant business.”
Young: It’s so funny that he told you that, too.
Wong Burgess: My dad was like, “Well, you’re done with your bachelor’s degree. Why are you getting more degrees?” So I did that and then realized that the most important things you learn are hands-on with your dad from the school of hard knocks in a family business. For me, it’s cultural, generational, and educational because I would come back and go, “Oh, Dad, this is what we learned in ECON today. My fancy Adam Smith textbook told me that this is what’s important.” In my 20s, I was like, “Dad, you don’t know anything. You didn’t even get to finish school. What on earth are you talking about?” It seems so cliché but it’s that full circle thing where you’re like, Wow, he was right. The things that are now most dear to me are right in front of me and have been the whole time. Working for a family business, the most valuable thing for me is when the shit hits the fan. I know the people at the top are going to get me and they’re going to be there.
Young: A million percent.
Wong Burgess: We squabble and have disagreements, because he’s 85 and I’m not. The man founded the business with my mom, with their own hands. Nobody gave them any money. Nobody gave them anything. It’s incredibly important to me to be respectful of that now. When you’re in a new home in a new country, you’ve got to just figure it out in a different way. And food service, I think, is something that’s easier. Oh God, why did I say that? No, but I think it’s a good entry job.
Young: It’s a gateway.
Wong Burgess: Yes, it’s a great gateway. And that’s kind of how a lot of these first-generation Chinese restaurants get started. I had this fork in the road and in Chinese philosophy, there’s a proverb that says “The road will pave itself as you walk” versus you’re on these paved roads and then you’ve got to figure out a way.
Young: I feel like when you meet somebody in the restaurant business or in the kitchen, you get them in a way that you know things will be OK. No matter if the shit hits the fan, we’ll pivot and we’ll do it and we’ll figure it out and we keep it going.
Wong Burgess: I don’t think legacy was what my parents were thinking at all. In fact, a couple years ago we were locking up at the Hyde Park location with my mom. She’s usually there with me, and we were turning off the kitchen lights. We were leaving and my mom said, “If you had told me forty-something years ago that I’d be locking up this restaurant with my grandkids, I would’ve said, You’re insane. We’re going to try this thing and we’ll see what happens.” And I think they’ve been kind of like that. It’s like this weird immigrant mentality where they’re laser focused. They don’t have some fancy business plan.
Dr. Mike Wong—who opened the first Oriental Wok in Edgewood, Kentucky, with his wife, Helen, nearly 50 years—comes over and Wong Burgess asks him if he thought he’d be in business for so long.
Dr. Wong: Anytime you open a business, you want [it] to be longer. But you don’t know how long. You just work hard. Try to keep going, going, going, going.
Wong Burgess: There’s no fancy plan, right?
Dr. Wong: No fancy plan. When she grew up, she took over. It’s all yours.
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