Today we’d like to introduce you to Gonghao Yang.
Gonghao, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I’m originally from Canton, China, in which my family used to run a family business for around 30 years. Graduating from my college in China, I came to Boston to pursue my Master’s Degree at Northeastern University.
It has been 7 years since I left my hometown and settled in Boston. In these years, I’ve been missing traditional Cantonese food so much, especially the Cantonese dessert. I know there are few dessert places here around in Boston, and I tried them all out of homesickness, but trust me, their dessert was far from authentic.
There had been times that when I drove down Storrow Drive and Harvard Bridge, looking at the Prudential and the Charles, there was a little voice in my mind whispering to me, “I really love this city. Its diversity and dynamics. I wish I could be one of the culture contributors.”
This tiny little thought kept growing in my mind and finally, I started to take actions, not only because I wanted to satisfy my stomach, but also because I wanted to promote Cantonese culture and bring more culture diversity in Boston. I believe that that the pursuit of healthy and tasty food is a universal thing and I want to be the one who fulfills people’s wishes.
After days of arduous research, I found this brand called “C Fruit Life”, which is one of the top three Hong Kong style dessert brands in China. C Fruit Life has more than 800 branch stores all over the world. I have to admit that I was so lucky at that time. Two years ago in 2015, C Fruit Life was seeking oversea partners for a US branch store at the time when I was also looking for them. Such a coincidence!
Finishing a 3-month training program in Hong Kong, I started to look for a perfect location in Boston. I intended to introduce this famous Cantonese specialty to as many people as possible. Allston was the first area that popped up in my mind, for the reason that it’s a dynamic and energetic city, which consists of tons of college students, young professionals, and local residents. I think a neighborhood like this is more open to embrace new things and culture diversity. This matches one of my goals: to promote this Cantonese delicacy as much as possible in a short period of time.
When it came to the interior design for the store, my partner Liang and I spent almost a year to refine its decorations and setup. In addition to bringing great quality food here, we also wanted C Fruit Life to build up a great vibe for people to hang out, study and chill.
As for the process of ingredient selection, Liang and I went to almost every food market in Boston as well as Asian fruit suppliers in New York City, just because we insisted to deliver the highest quality of food ingredients.
After two-year hard work in preparation, we finally hosted our grand opening on May 16th, 2017. So far, C Fruit Life has received a lot of recognitions among our customers. Unexpectedly, almost everything was sold out on the first day of the grand opening, everything that Liang and I spent 4 nights prepping for. It is really tiring work, but every time when we see customers’ smiling and having fun in our place, we forget about the tiredness and think that this is totally worth it.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I wouldn’t say it was a smooth road. However, I have to admit that I got lucky somehow. Looking for a location was a big difficulty for me. One of my friends Jimmy is a real estate agent at NextGen Realty. I found this current location with his assistance. After a long negotiation with the landlord, Jimmy eventually helped me to nail this place. As for the interior design, the landlord gave us a lot of help and suggestions, which speeded up the inspection process.
My lack of experiences in running a restaurant is another difficulty to me. I feel so lucky and so glad that I found my partner Liang by the time. Unlike me, he has more than 30 years of experiences in running restaurant businesses. Before he came to the states, he was a chief cook in a five-star restaurant in his hometown Guangzhou, China. Also, he used to own a restaurant in Medford for almost 20 years. He has taught me a lot in regard of maintaining a restaurant and managing my staff. With his knowledge and help, the time we spent on preparing for the opening of C Fruit Life had been shortened and the process had been way much easier than it used to be.
C Fruit Life is still a new brand in the United States. It’s challenging for me to tap into the market and introduce our products to our target audience. So far we have tried many different ways to promote C Fruit Life. We have built a website, and set up our social media accounts including Facebook, Instagram and WeChat, targeting all the potential customers in both Chinese community and westerners’ community. I think this online marketing strategy has been working well so far.
Please tell us about C Fruit Life.
C Fruit Life is one of the top 3 Hong Kong style dessert brands in China. We are the general agency of the franchises in the east coast America. We aim at creating healthy and tasty fruit dessert, as well as introducing traditional homemade Cantonese dessert. In my opinion, a specialty food can represent a specific culture. We are not just selling food, but we are actually introducing Cantonese culture to people from all over the world. I am really proud of myself in terms of that. I am not just running a business; I am also bringing fresh cultural elements into Boston. We are creating more sparks of culture diversity when we are shaving snowdae and making smoothies.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
Unlike the weather in Boston, the weather in my hometown is super humid and hot. It is very normal that the temp will go up to 90 something degree in summer. When I was still little, I went to an elementary school and there was no AC in the classroom. My friends and I were always suffering from the unbearable heat and humidity in class. I remember oftentimes, the first thing we used to do right after school was to go swimming and play basketball. After that, we would meet at a local dessert place in the city and hang out there. I always ordered a bowl of grass jelly with condensed milk toppings or a sweet green porridge with seaweed in summer, because they could cool me down easily in the hot summer. As I am writing this, I can still taste the cool and fresh feelings of the desserts, which is making me homesick.
Contact Info:
- Address: 171 Brighton Ave
- Website: www.c-fruitlife.com
- Phone: 6172025799
- Email: cfruitlife.us@gmail.com
- Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/cfruitlife.allston/
- Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/CFruitLife
- Other: http://mp.weixin.qq.com/mp/getmasssendmsg?__biz=MzIyMzUzMzI2Mw==#wechat_webview_type=1&wechat_redirect

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