Jong and Esther Lee at USA Donuts. Courtesy Ashley Liu.
USA Donuts has been an Oak Cliff staple since the early 2000s, and owners Jong and Esther Lee have seen some things, says their daughter Ashley Liu.
The shop on Westmoreland has survived the 2008 financial recession, the COVID-19 pandemic, countless armed and unarmed robberies and overnight break-ins. But recent events have left Ashley unwilling to endure conditions to which her parents, long ago resigned.
Weapon-wielding robbers have been especially terrifying, Ashley says.
“They have come in and pointed guns and knives at my mom. One pointed a gun at my brother when he was working. He was young, in high school, at the time.”
While less life-threatening, the repeated burglaries and disheartening damage to the business has chipped away, as years pass, at the business owners’ resolve.
“My parents have arrived in the mornings to find huge holes broken into the side of the shop. They repair it, try to make it better, add what security they can afford, each time,” Ashley says. “They file police reports each time. But nothing changes.”
The Lees have talked about leaving, moving the shop out of Oak Cliff, but they are, perhaps, too stubborn, and they love the community too much, Ashley says. “They are attached.”
She and her siblings have grown up working in the shop and knowing the customers.
“I see people who came in here when I was a child, still coming,” Ashley says. They knew her as a little child and it blows their minds to see her all grown up and working the register.
Ashley says that as long as she can recall, her parents, primarily Korean-speaking immigrants, seemed to think being regularly robbed and burglarized is a part of being in business. The idea that things could get better, that they could stop being terrorized, was wishful thinking and too much to ask of this world.
“They have the attitude that this happens to a lot of people, and so many other people are doing worse than them, so who are they to call attention to themselves,” she says.
But what happened to her parents a few days ago is what Ashley calls her “last straw.”
A week ago the Lees home was burglarized. Ashley says the thieves took many of her parents most valuable possessions.
The break-in occurred during the exact hours her parents are at work at the donut shop, hours most people are home asleep.
“The person that broke into their house was very smart about that,” says Ashley, who believes the intruder knew where the Lees worked and lived. “They were really thorough and knew just how much time they had.”
She says they are working with a police detective, but no one in the family has much faith that anything will come of that.
Ashley finds it maddening that crimes perpetrated on families like hers are such a “low priority” that there is almost zero hope of restitution. She has heard from other business and home owners who feel the same lack of hope, she says.
At the Advocate, we’ve written many times about break ins and about entrepreneurs going out of business due to “low priority” crimes. At a national level, many small businesses have struggled lately due to smash-and-grabs and theft.
In this case, the 24-year-old donut shop heiress is going public and trying to help her parents and the family business. She had to do something, she says, and because she cannot physically protect them herself, she took to the internet.
Unknown to the Lees, their daughter Ashley, after the home break-in, started a Go Fund Me to raise money for an upgraded security system at the store.
“Our donut shop is a reminder of resilience in many seasons of our lives,” Ashley noted on the page before explaining her parents’ struggles.
In the four days since starting the fundraiser, supporters have donated more than $2000. Ashley says the goal is $3,000. In light of the success, she is already working with security firms to beef up security at the store.
In order to bring further attention to the matter, Ashley created a TikTok video, which caught the eyes of Ring home security camera company, which could help the family improve the surveillance situation at the store. So far the video has accumulated 24,000 views and almost 1,000 comments.
The Lees have had cameras for several years, Ashley says, and their presence helped to reduce the number of armed robberies, but the alarms were not going off unless a window was smashed. With the newer security systems, clients receive alerts upon the smallest breech.
Ashley says she and her siblings do everything they can to help with the store. Her brother Pil, 21 and still in college, has learned to bake so that he can fill in for one parent whenever he can, so the other can take a day off. Her older sister who is in pharmacy school plans to save and help their parents retire when they are ready.
“We are a team,” Ashley says. “My siblings are amazing.”
The fundraiser and video, which, to date, her parents know nothing about, are not simply about raising money for security tools but also are an effort to make a difference, raise awareness and lift the cynicism that hardworking business owners such as her parents feel. And she’s hoping they will accept help from the community that loves them.
“Seeing the response so far, it’s been surreal, and I am feeling hope, like, people are good, people want to help,” Ashley says. “People like my parents, who are so independent, they don’t expect help. But I think if something happens with this, that will give them, and a lot of other people, some hope.”
