February 6, 2017

Meet David Mangold of Koala T Café in Westwood Village

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to David Mangold.

David, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I graduated in UCLA with a degree in Business Economics and a minor in Mandarin Chinese in 2013. That summer my then business partner and classmate, Vincent Ho, started Koala Tea, Inc. Having gone to UCLA for four years and having frequented Sawtelle many times while in school, we both felt that the (Westwood) Village could use some more boba and Asian/Chinese options and saw many classmates felt the same way.

At the time, I had interned for a summer at a Big 4 accounting firm and had been interviewing for a position in a consulting firm, but ultimately decided I wanted to do something more personally meaningful. We wanted to create a business that would mean something to us as well as serve the UCLA community we felt had served us in so many ways. Our simple way of doing that was to start a boba truck. By October of that year, we had a lease for a food truck and were parking next to Ronald Reagan Hospital 4 nights a week.

Here are a couple links to the coverage from the Daily Bruin back then:
Article: http://dailybruin.com/2013/10/30/ucla-graduates-bring-new-boba-truck-to-westwood-village/

At that time, the truck was entirely Bruin-owned and operated, all the employees were UCLA students or alumni. We also gave favorable fundraiser terms to UCLA student organizations to help support the students because we knew how hard it could be to raise funds as a student group. We even experimented with different and fun food items that eventually gave birth to our iconic specialty, the Koala Fries. A full helping of golden brown fries topped with cheese, pico de gallo, guacamole, sriracha mayo, lime sour cream, jalapeños and our homemade bulgogi meat. All the sauces, the pico de gallo, and guacamole are all made in-house.

After 7 months of running the truck, we decided to end our lease and devote ourselves full-time to a brick-and-mortar location in Westwood, our current location at 10965 Weyburn Ave. After working through the city planning process, we eventually opened the store in January of 2015. We continued to run the store and, as much as possible, be an asset to the UCLA community. Whether that meant offering unique and delicious products, a place to hang out with your friends after class, or a way for your organization to get support from a local business, we wanted to make sure we weren’t just another restaurant.

Eventually, in September of 2015, we were able to requisition Chef Zongyi Liu, an award-winning Chinese chef, to help design a full, authentic Chinese food menu to add to the store. Chef Liu is an internationally renowned chef who trained at the Beijing Hotel serving some of the world’s highest dignitaries and winning awards at the Bocuse d’Or Competition in France. We also were able to hire David Wagner as general manager, a previous general manager from the successful Koji’s Sushi and Shabu Shabu in Hollywood who continues to help manage the operation today. Since last year, we’ve been serving authentic Szechuan and Hunan food in addition to our selection of boba drinks and still retain some of the food truck menu items during our late night program past 9:30 pm. We continue to work hard, serve great food, and be an asset to the Westwood and UCLA communities.

Has it been a smooth road?
Certainly, nothing in business is easy and we had our fair share of struggles. It took us a full 18 months from signing a lease for a location to actually opening for business and that’s not atypical in the Westwood Village. We had to figure out paying rent, managing the construction and permitting process, and running a food truck all at the same time. We almost ran out of money during the process and had to raise more in order to finish construction. I cried on the first day we opened because we were able to make it through everything despite the odds and have a real, functioning business.

So, as you know, we’re impressed with Koala T Café – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
We sell a full menu of authentic Szechuan and Hunan Chinese food as well as a selection of boba drinks. Our best seller is our Popcorn Chicken, which is marinated, battered fried chicken tossed with a balanced blend of salt and pepper powder, a Taiwanese favorite. One of our specialties is our Hot & Spicy Beef Clay Pot, which is a Szechuan numbing spicy soup with beef, napa cabbage, glass noodles, and tofu, a very popular fan favorite. We also still carry our famous Koala Fries past 9:30 pm, Korean BBQ marinated tri-tip, pico de gallo, guacamole, jack and cheddar cheese, sriracha mayo, and lime sour cream over golden-brown french fries with a green onion and cotija cheese garnish. We’re known for our Koala bowls, different selections of protein over rice for only $4.95 that are quickly prepared so you can satisfy without hurting your pocketbook or schedule.

For drinks we have a myriad of specialty drinks beyond the normal boba shop offerings like our Horchata Boba and our top-selling Milky Way, half and half and condensed milk blended with ice, served with caramel, boba, and pudding.

Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
What I like best is that you’re not too far from anything, minus the traffic, so you have almost any type of cuisine you want from Ethiopian to Indian to Persian to French and they’re authentic with people from those places running them. It’s a great mix of cultures; I love the diversity.

I do think Los Angeles has some challenges with traffic and rent costs, both commercial and residential. It’s hard to find employees because people making restaurant wages can’t really afford to live on the Westside and it’s hard for them to commute because they can’t afford car ownership. Those two things sometimes make it hard to be in LA.

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