MODESTO, Calif. — On busy McHenry Avenue in Modesto, a grand opening over a year in the making happened over the weekend.
"The community has been awesome," Trong Vuong, owner of the Asian Market, said.
Trong Vuong's community of shoppers has been absent of their Asian Market, 2425 McHenry Ave., shopping experience after the original store burned down due to arson in June 2019.
Now, Trong Vuong has re-opened a store nearly three times as big as the old store with even more products to choose from.
"You know specialty items before were Japanese products. But recently the past two years Korean products have started coming up and more people are into Korean products right now," Trong Vuong said.
The market also features fresh fish brought in several times a week from San Francisco. Melissa Romero drove to the market with her family from Oakdale. Until recently, she would drive to Stockton or as far away as Watsonville to get her Asian goods.
"And they like the sweets and stuff so I prefer the sweets and the Japanese candies because they're a lot healthier than the regular," Romero said.
Amelita Lazaro and husband Rudy have been loyal customers for more than 30 years.
"The people here [are] really nice. You know the owner, he...[is] approachable," Lazaro said.
The market was so packed with anxious shoppers on its grand opening Sunday that the family decided to keep it open until 8 p.m., two hours past its scheduled 6 p.m. closing time.
"Extremely happy and we're so fortunate and blessed that we have such great supporters here in Modesto," Kayla Vuong, Trong's wife who also works here with two of her four daughters, said.
"Eighty five percent of my customers I would have to say are from my old store. And they came over here back to me over here. And they're wonderful. I love them all," Trong Vuong said.
Trong Vuong is a second generation market owner. His parents originally opened the store after coming to the United States from Vietnam.
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