ABOVE: Pom Moongauklang. (Photo by Jake Stevens)
ORLANDO | Pom Pom’s Teahouse & Sandwicheria commemorated 15 years as one of the community’s favorite local eateries with a 15-day celebration — set to end Jan. 9 — honoring the restaurant’s food, drinks, art and, most importantly, its customers.
“My success is owed all to them and my staff,” owner Pom Moongauklang says. “Whenever they have friends in town or family they bring them by because they know we are a safe space.”
Moongauklang, who was born in Thailand, had been living in Orlando for a few years when she decided she wanted to open a deli-style restaurant like the one she use to go to in New York.
“After work at NoBu, (the New York eatery owned by celebrity chef Nobuyuki Matsuhisa and Oscar-winning actor Robert De Niro that Moongauklang worked at) all we wanted to do was grab a beer and a sandwich at the deli next door,” Moongauklang says. “And back in 2005, there really wasn’t anything like that here in Orlando.”
So Moongauklang decided she would open something like it.
“At the time the Baldwin Park area was being built and I was deciding whether to open up in there or in the Milk District,” Moongauklang recalls. “I had lived around the Milk District before and there was a little halal butcher that I noticed was going out of business and I looked at that spot and I thought this is perfect. This is where I need to be.”
15 years later, Pom Pom’s is a staple of Orlando’s Milk District. It is as synonymous with the area as Southern Nights, Drunken Monkey and Beefy Kings.
Moongauklang had hoped to mark Pom Pom’s 15th anniversary with a huge party but, due to the current pandemic, opted for a 15-day celebration filled with discounts and giveaways. Pom Pom’s also used the anniversary to help raise funds for local nonprofits. On Dec. 29, Moongauklang donated 15% of the eatery’s lunch proceeds to Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida and on Jan. 9 15% of that day’s proceeds will be donated to the onePULSE Foundation.
Moongauklang says that Pom Pom’s 15-day celebration honoring its loyal customers – who Moongauklang calls “Pomatics” – isn’t just for the last 15 years but also for the support she received from them since the start of the pandemic.
“Truthfully I didn’t think I was going to make it to 15,” Moongauklang says. “I think there were so many touch-and-go moments in 2020, but I’m grateful and thankful that all my purveyors understood and they worked with us, and of course the neighborhood. The Pomatics came out in force and that really, really helped us.”
Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, recognizing the social and cultural impact Pom Pom’s has had on Central Florida, issued a proclamation Jan. 6 declaring the day Pom Pom’s Teahouse & Sandwicheria Day in the city.
“When I opened Pom Pom’s I knew that, whatever else it would be, I wanted it to be a safe place for everyone and that’s what it has been since day one,” Moongauklang says. “You walk in and can see Danielle Hunter sitting there at the counter eating a tuna sandwich next to someone who works in construction.”
Pom Pom’s Teahouse & Sandwicheria is located at 67 N. Bumby Ave. in Orlando’s Milk District.
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