{"id":82992,"date":"2018-05-01T05:46:45","date_gmt":"2018-05-01T05:46:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kyccla.org\/portrait\/sue-ann\/"},"modified":"2018-05-01T05:46:45","modified_gmt":"2018-05-01T05:46:45","slug":"sue-ann","status":"publish","type":"portrait","link":"https:\/\/www.kyccla.org\/es\/portrait\/sue-ann\/","title":{"rendered":"Sue Ann"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sue Ann owns and operates Mes\u00f3n Caf\u00e9<\/a>, a beloved neighborhood spot on Western Avenue.\u00a0I was told about her place by a local who said Mes\u00f3n was his favorite place in Koreatown. The K-Umami bowl<\/a>\u2014farro, soy-sauce chicken \u00e0 la \uc7a5\uc870\ub9bc,<\/a> with kale, miso butter, shiso cucumbers and scrambled eggs\u2014is a to-die-for healthy dream breakfast. Sue Ann and her husband are also actively engaged with the \u00abWelcome to Western\u00bb<\/a> project, \u00aba year-long public realm enhancement project that is informed by the many users of Western Ave. between Melrose and 3rd Street.\u00bb\u00a0\u00a0Welcome to Western\u00a0is a\u00a0Great Streets<\/a>\u00a0project sponsored by\u00a0Mayor Eric Garcetti<\/a>\u00a0and made possible by\u00a0Councilmember David Ryu<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Council President Herb Wesson<\/a>\u00a0in partnership with LA-M\u00e1s<\/a> and the\u00a0Koreatown Youth and Community Center<\/a>\u00a0(KYCC).<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Where is your hometown?\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

I was born in New York but raised in North Carolina until I was about six. Then, I moved to Anaheim Hills in Orange County, where I spent the majority of my student life. I was there for a good eight years.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Do you live or work in Koreatown?\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

My husband and I started running Mes\u00f3n Cafe<\/a> in June 2017. The cafe was our first business together, so it\u2019s definitely been quite fun and interesting. As owners, we have been able to experiment with the menu and observe our customers’ reactions. I would say the most satisfying part of the business is when I serve something that I created, and people give me feedback right away.<\/p>\n

We were pretty lucky. When we first started looking for a place to settle down, we were actually looking outside of L.A., but we were open to anywhere. The main factor in our search was to find a place that was affordable. There is a lot more competition in L.A., but the more we looked into locations, we realized that it would be very nice to be in L.A. because of the diverse group of people that live here. Whereas if you go to a more suburban area, the customer pool is much more limited.<\/p>\n

Our store gets a good mix of people. We see a lot of young people\u2014more than we expected actually\u2014millennials in their early 20s to 40s come by a lot. But our patrons are from all backgrounds, honestly\u2014mostly Caucasians, Asians, Latinos, Southeast Asians, and Filipinos.<\/p>\n

What does Mes\u00f3n mean?<\/strong><\/p>\n

When we took over the caf\u00e9 business, we had decided to keep the original name from the previous owner. Although we kept the name of the previous business, I would say we changed about 80 percent of the menu. My husband and I definitely liked the direction that the previous owners were taking the caf\u00e9 in, so we kept that same spirit. The word \u201cmeson<\/em>\u201d is a Spanish word that means \u201clocal caf\u00e9\u201d or \u201clocal eatery.\u201d The spirit of the caf\u00e9 is to create that local feel\u2014nothing too extravagant, but at the same time, still evokes that \u00abawe\u00bb factor through the quality of food that we serve. We hope that when people come to our caf\u00e9 to eat or try out our drinks, they\u2019re having an enjoyable experience. Our food is Korean-inspired, but still Californian.<\/p>\n

What are your thoughts on Koreatown?<\/strong><\/p>\n

During my childhood, if we needed to see a Korean doctor, we would come to Koreatown. My first impression of the community was that everything had an older feel. The original Koreatown was oriented towards benefitting older businesses, with the older generation being the business owners.<\/p>\n

But now Koreatown has definitely changed. There\u2019s so much going on in K-Town. There\u2019s a lot of younger people starting businesses here\u2014that\u2019s my idea of Koreatown now. There are so many places to eat. All different cuisines. Everybody comes to Koreatown to eat\u2014the food and night scene here is huge.<\/p>\n

What are some of the challenges and benefits of owning a business on Western Avenue?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It helps us that Western is a major street. It\u2019s a street we always take and if you mention Western Avenue to anyone, they will probably know where it is.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But you don\u2019t get as much exposure to the neighborhood as you would expect. There are a lot more people driving by rather than walking by or hanging out in the street. There\u2019s not a lot of places to stop in this area, so that\u2019s a big challenge, to get more exposure.<\/p>\n

Word of mouth is probably the best way that people have found out about us; it\u2019s a very organic process. \u201cMy friend told me about this place and that\u2019s how I found out\u201d\u00a0 or \u00abI never knew there was even a caf\u00e9 here until somebody told me about it.\u00bb We installed new signage after we took over the business, so that has helped a lot too.<\/p>\n

What changes would you like to see?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019d like there to be more local businesses thriving in the neighborhood. I wish there were also more community events\u2014I think the nearest Farmers Market is the one in Larchmont.<\/p>\n

Where is your favorite place in Koreatown?<\/strong>
\nWe have a lot of places we like to go to, but there\u2019s a place called Yuk Dae Jang<\/a> on Sixth Street, past Vermont. It\u2019s a newer place\u2014they\u2019ve only been there a couple of years\u2014but they have really good Korean food. A lot of good soups. The \uce7c\uad6d\uc218<\/a> and \ubcf4\uc308<\/a>\u00a0are both really good. They have an outdoor patio where my sister brings her dog. You can have bond better with whomever you\u2019re with, family or friends, because the food is really good and everyone is having a happy moment.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sue Ann owns and operates Mes\u00f3n Caf\u00e9, a beloved neighborhood spot on Western Avenue.\u00a0I was told about her place by a local who said Mes\u00f3n was his favorite place in …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-82992","portrait","type-portrait","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kyccla.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portrait\/82992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kyccla.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portrait"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kyccla.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/portrait"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kyccla.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kyccla.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portrait\/82992\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kyccla.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}