While panic flooded both Wall Street and Main Street in the late s due to the brewing financial crisis, a different mood permeated Spring Mountain Road. Even as many local firms closed shop as they felt the burn of the recession, these grocery chains grew. This is due to the rapidly growing Asian population in the city which created an unprecedented demand for Asian products, Las Vegas Asian Chamber of Commerce Chairman Robert Young said. The Asian Chamber, established in , has observed the progress of the Asian community in Las Vegas. Indeed, at an explosive Figures from the U.
Founded in by Taiwanese immigrant Roger H. Roger Chen, a Taiwanese-born American , opened the chain's first location in in Little Saigon , a Vietnamese American community located in Westminster , California [3] [4] [5] now closed. In , a second market was opened in Montebello also now closed. It was originally called 99 Price Market but was eventually renamed 99 Ranch Market to give the supermarket a somewhat trendier name.
What began in as a few dozen Vietnamese Catholics gathering at local homes on Sundays has flourished into a church with a growing campus and native-language Mass every day. Across three Sunday services, some 1, people crowd into the low-ceilinged chapel a few miles east of the Las Vegas Strip. A mix of immigrants, refugees and U. The same can be said across the board for Asian-Americans, the fastest-growing racial or ethnic group in Clark County around Las Vegas.