Asian American entrepreneurs: Lessons in resilience and recovery

Leung had gone a long way toward fulfilling her dream of building a sustainable business — and then the coronavirus changed everything. “When the pandemic hit, everybody was really stressed about their well-being and the well-being of their families,” she recalls. “I felt a lot of responsibility.” Wholesale orders dried up as retail stores shut their doors, and the inability to have more than one employee in the studio at a time made it difficult to fulfill the orders still coming in. “We wanted to keep everybody safe, but we also had this want and need to make sure the business could survive,” she says.

For help applying for a Paycheck Protection Program loan as well as an Economic Injury Disaster Loan, Leung reached out to the Asian Pacific Islander Small Business Program, an organization that receives support from Bank of America. Even with the organization providing invaluable guidance, the application process still took so long that Leung also had to use personal funds and help from her family to tide the business over.

When staggered in-person shifts began again, Leung and her team found that the business began growing as well, with more customers buying and mailing cards and gift in the absence of in-person gatherings. Another silver lining to the pandemic, Leung notes, has been the realization that the business can offer employees a flexible work environment and still succeed. “We want to make sure that the people in our organization are treated just as well as our customers,” she says. “If we’re not providing them a positive experience, how can they provide that to our customers?”

As they shaped the culture of their business, they also drew on their family-oriented belief system. “We try to get to know our customers on a first-name basis and have quarterly gatherings with our team to build a stronger relationship with each other,” says Tommy. Lisa concurs: “Tommy knows 90% of the customers by name, and they know him.”

By the time the pandemic hit, L3 had already built a strong community of customers who supported the store throughout the pandemic. In those initial months, the Laus adapted their dine-in/walk-in model quickly, providing a drive-thru-like experience and relying more heavily on online ordering and tap-to-pay for curbside pickup. They also ramped up sanitization and cleanliness and began offering prepackaged, large-volume to-go containers to help minimize in-person interactions.

“As people started feeling more comfortable, we started getting customers back because they knew it was important to help us stay alive,” recalls Lisa. Tommy remembers a customer giving a $100 tip for the team on a $1 purchase. “That’s the type of community that we have,” says Lisa. The café’s name derives from the business’s three values — love, laugh and learn. With customer volume back to pre-pandemic levels, the Laus plan to continue sharing their love of coffee, as well as plenty of laughs, as they spend time with their supportive community.