B&K Asian Kitchen brought Lao-Thai food to Fresno. Now, beloved eatery is for sale
Bounkong Duangboupha emigrated from Laos to the United States as a refugee in 1976 with his wife, three kids and six dollars in his pocket — dreaming he’d one day run his own business.
His dream came true after he opened his restaurant, B&K Asian Kitchen, in 1989 inside a small, unassuming building at First Street and Hedges Avenue.
Duangboupha’s friends discouraged him from saying his restaurant cooked Lao food, since customers would find it unfamiliar. Still, many Southeast Asian people quickly flocked there, and the restaurant has cultivated a loyal following over the decades.
The 35-year run by the Duangboupha family is soon coming to an end. The family announced last month on Facebook it is looking for new owners to take over B&K Asian Kitchen. Their search remains ongoing.
“That’s my parents’ dream: our recipes that have not only financially taken care of our family, but it’s something that’s been passed on, generations after generations,” said Khong Duangboupha, who manages the restaurant and owns it alongside her sister and mother. “We can show you, we can give it to you, but you have to have the same passion about it.”
The Duangboupha sisters said employees prepare food fresh with ingredients from local farmers’ markets, and they regularly taste dishes in the kitchen before checking in to ensure their customers are satisfied.
“Our customers are like our family,” Khong said. “We make them feel welcome and special.”
Step into B&K on a weekday afternoon and you’ll find a wide range of customers, including friends revisiting the restaurant for the first time in years and lawyers who’ve frequented the spot for decades.
According to attorney Eric Schweitzer, the restaurant has become “very well known” among local lawyers and judges. He often orders spring rolls and laap, one of the kitchen’s specialties that mixes minced meat with vegetables, anchovy and fish sauces, lime juice, and an assortment of spices.
Schweitzer recently tried the restaurant’s drunken noodles for the first time. The “vinegary tan” on the vegetables, as he described it, blends with a spicy and flavorful sauce.
“The savory, the sweet, a little sour — it’s all in there,” he said.
Several people have expressed interest in acquiring the space, including from Minnesota, where the Duangboupha family lived before moving to California. However, the family has not finalized any deals yet, and B&K Asian Kitchen will remain open while the family searches for new ownership.
Longtime customers are already reminiscing about their favorite memories at the restaurant.
Steve Villata befriended the owners and employees, and his Thai wife found food that “tasted like home.” The restaurant became his go-to “hangout” spot, and he would sometimes visit for a comforting bowl of pho or khao piak, the Lao equivalent of chicken noodle soup, to cure hangovers.
“Literally in my life, that’s the only restaurant that I have like that — that it’s just that place,” he said. “It’s like the TV show, ‘Cheers.’ That’s my ‘Cheers.’”
Villata moved to the Sacramento area in the early 2000s and, even though his children never lived in Fresno, they would ask to return to B&K Asian Kitchen for its khao piak. The family regularly visits relatives in Fresno and stops at the restaurant whenever possible.
Bounkong Duangboupha kept working in the kitchen until his death in 2022, and he did not want his family to sell the restaurant afterward. His daughters, Pong and Khong, kept running the restaurant for several years, but the latter said it became harder to find dedicated employees after the pandemic, and the sisters want to spend more time with their mother, Bone.
Pong previously operated separate Thai restaurants in North Fresno and North Carolina, but she returned to B&K in 2016 to cook more with her family. When the family finds a new tenant, Pong hopes to start a smaller restaurant and Khong plans to support her two sons, who have long dealt with kidney failure. Bone will retire.
After the family posted on Facebook about one of Khong’s sons needing a kidney transplant, other community members sent well wishes, and some sought to determine whether they could match with him. For Khong, this outpouring of support embodied the restaurant’s success.
“We tried to be as kind and as nice as we could to people, and I think people feel that, and they come back and treat us in kind,” she said.
This story was originally published July 12, 2025 at 8:00 AM.
