Let’s set the scene. It’s been a long night out on fraternity row, and you are starting to feel the effects of dancing nonstop to Dua Lipa. You’re hungry, but it’s nearing 2 a.m. and In-N-Out Burger has taken its last orders for the night. You’re about to give up when you catch a whiff of – could it be? Hangry Moon’s, a fried chicken joint with an emphasis on family, is nestled between the In-N-Out drive-thru and Fat Sal’s, harboring a swarm of hungry students.
If you’re a Hangry Moon’s regular, chances are you’ll recognize a familiar face or two on the other side of the counter. Behind the Hangry Bites combo and the KBBQ Thicc fries is the Moon family, a team of four who have been a part of the Westwood late-night food scene since October 2018.
When I first met owner Danny Moon on a warm winter afternoon, the restaurant looked different than it did at night. Before our conversation, I had only seen the restaurant late in the evening, when the fryer bubbled loudly and the chatter of a full crew mingled with the voices of students in line. When I visited, Danny worked with just one other employee, and the fryer remained silent behind them. This was Hangry Moon’s before sunset, prior to the masses arriving. I had eaten here before, but I didn’t know the story of the family behind it. I suspect many Bruins don’t.
The Moons run a tight ship out of a small storefront on Gayley Avenue, churning out orders of crispy yet juicy bites of chicken. On Friday nights, a long line of college students can be seen stretching past the joint’s small order window. But after talking to Danny for only a few minutes, I realized how unbothered he was by the fast-paced kitchen environment.
The Moons emigrated from South Korea to California nearly 20 years ago to seek higher wages and better educational opportunities for their children, Danny said. He left his career in the textile industry, and his wife Yun-Hee Kim traded in her job as a designer to start a new life in the United States.
After several years of operating a food truck out of Orange County, Danny and Yun-Hee brought their business experience to Westwood when their eldest son Josh Moon, a fifth-year philosophy student, transferred to UCLA. His first quarter was marked by the opening of Hangry Moon’s, where he worked nearly full time as his family searched for other employees.
“It was my first quarter at UCLA, and I didn’t know what UCLA was about. It was so much harder than community college, and we somehow had to operate this restaurant,” Josh said. I was speaking to Josh over Zoom as he navigated traffic. We spoke for an hour during his commute. I got the impression being this busy was normal for him.
While Josh began school, he and his dad commuted from Irvine almost daily to get Hangry Moon’s off the ground. With Danny closing down the restaurant at 4 a.m. and needing to be back to open up shop again at 10 a.m., Josh said his father often didn’t have time to drive home for the night. During that period, Danny frequently slept in his car.
“I felt really bad because my dad was sleeping in his car so that I could go to school,” Josh said.
But the push for a family-owned business was not just to support Josh as he started at UCLA. It was motivated in part by Danny’s desire to control his employment, Josh said. During his first decade in California, Danny worked as a waiter and then as a sushi chef. But after a severe fall from their home’s roof, Yun-Hee encouraged him to take time off from the demanding hours of his restaurant job.
“My mom was like, ‘No, you broke your back and your foot. You can’t go back to working those long hours. It’s time to start your own business,’” Josh said.
That’s when the Moons dipped their toes into the food truck industry, working at music festivals and catering events. Then, when Josh got into UCLA, the family decided its next business venture would follow him to Westwood. There, Josh could help out at the family restaurant and contribute to funding his education.
Yun-Hee spearheaded the inception of Hangry Moon’s, from scouting a location in Westwood to designing the menu to include food that would satisfy late-night cravings as well as more balanced options for lunch and dinner. When deciding what dishes the restaurant would carry, she sought to cater to Westwood’s hungriest demographic, Josh said. What was universally appetizing to college students? Fried chicken, she decided.
“My mom straight up ate Raising Cane’s for a week just to see what the appeal was,” Josh said, laughing.
Apparently, her strategy paid off.
Ryan Yee, a third-year marine biology student, usually orders the Buffalo Thicc fries, a steaming plate of chicken tenders topped with buffalo sauce, gooey melted cheese and the Moons’ signature Hangry sauce. The night I spoke to him, however, he wanted to try something new and ordered one of the Hangry rice bowls. Like the other students ordering food after traditional dinner hours, Yee said he often goes to Hangry Moon’s to satisfy his late-night cravings.
While Yun-Hee refined the menu, it was Josh’s idea to introduce “hangry” to the family business. He proposed a name that paid homage to their family name with a catchy twist and captured what he thought would be the emotional state of customers – hungry and tired – when they came to the restaurant late at night. His parents, new to the concept of hangry, rolled with it.
“Josh told me like, ‘Oh, this is a new word.’ So I was like, ‘OK!’” Danny said with a laugh.
Family really is a trademark of Hangry Moon’s – all the way from the name to the portion sizes.
“All of our food, they’re not really individual, small portions,” Josh said. “They’re all family-sized portions. If you put two together, you can feed four or five people. We wanted our food to be an occasion (to) come together around.”
The emphasis on family manifests itself in the business’ operation, too. All hands are on deck to run Hangry Moon’s. Now, Josh’s younger brother Matthew Moon is starting to help out by working some weekends with his parents. Matthew and his parents make the trip from Irvine together, a drive that can take more than two hours in bad traffic.
The hefty commute has not been easy on his family, Josh said. And the Moons are not the only ones on the team battling long drives just to make it to Westwood – the same reality faces employees who also live far from the Westside of Los Angeles. Most of their staff members commute from Koreatown and downtown LA, Josh said.
“With our location being far from where working-class people live, no one who lives in Beverly Hills is going to want to work at Hangry Moon’s,” he said.
The Moons have hired two full-time employees who have stayed with the business for several years, Josh said, but it seems they still have trouble keeping employees long term. Hangry Moon’s is not alone in this trend. According to Business Insider, the past year has seen a 144% employee turnover rate in fast-food restaurants nationwide, meaning establishments are losing employees faster than they can hire new ones.
But as the business slowly grows, Josh said Hangry Moon’s is trying to give its employees more benefits – benefits that Danny did not receive during his time as a sushi chef. They’ve started offering monthly salaries, more extensive sick pay and paid time off on holidays to long-term employees, Danny said.
California law allows employers to limit sick pay to three days per year for each full-time employee, so the Moons’ approach is uncommon in the fast-food industry. But for the Moon family, it’s just part of taking care of their team, Josh said.
“If this is someone who ... cares about the well-being of our restaurant and our family, in translation, then he is someone who is essentially part of the family and who we should treat like one,” Josh said.
Danny shows his appreciation for his staff in less direct ways too. Josh said his dad has been learning Spanish – his third language – to better communicate with his Spanish-speaking employees. It’s just another way the Moons bring their family values into the kitchen.
With family and business matters intricately intertwined, the Moons have been forced to find ways to balance the two. In Hangry Moon’s first year of operation, Yun-Hee suffered a brain aneurysm, and shortly after, a second one that took the family by surprise. Danny took time away from the restaurant and modified its hours to aid her recovery, but they struggled to keep its doors open.
“I couldn’t think about anything about the business. First of all, I need to take care of my wife,” Danny said.
But the Moons found support in the most unlikely of places – Josh said his fraternity friends helped keep the business afloat by volunteering to work odd hours while his dad took care of his mom.
“They would overwork themselves knowing that my family needed the help,” Josh said. “So I am really thankful to them.”
The family’s anxiety around Yun-Hee’s injury has seemingly lingered despite her successful recovery. She works less at the restaurant now, and so Danny has taken on most of the physical work at Hangry Moon’s.
Yun-Hee’s health, however, was not the last of the family’s challenges. Less than two years after opening, Hangry Moon’s was robbed. On Sept. 25, 2020, security footage showed a group of men breaking into the storefront and taking the cash from the register and the iPad used to take orders.
The family turned to Instagram for support from the community.
“Our family has struggled to pay rent and keep the business running since the beginning of the pandemic. To see what little we have being taken is heartbreaking to us,” their post about the incident said. “If you would like to help out, please buy our food! We miss our customers, and the best way to help is to enjoy what we make.”
Josh said the robbery would have been devastating – especially earlier in the Hangry Moon’s operation – but luckily, it was a loss they could stomach with two years of business under their belt. The family was grateful for the sympathy they received from their customers, Josh said, and for their neighbors at Fat Sal’s, who offered their security camera footage of the incident.
In many ways, hearing Josh talk about the break-in sounded more like the Moons were the victim of a home invasion than a restaurant robbery. At one point during my conversation with Danny outside the storefront, a group of students walked past and waved at him like how someone might greet a neighbor on their front porch.
“I’m interviewing right now!” he said to them, laughing. He turned to me. “They’re my regular customers,” he said.
The next Sunday I visited, Danny chatted with me during a lull in service. The frier hissed quietly, and orders slowly pinged behind him as Yun-Hee and Matthew worked inside.
Josh wasn’t behind the counter that night. He’s taking a break from the family business to focus on his internship at a law firm.
Sixteen-year-old Matthew, the youngest of the family, has big plans for the future. He wants to go to law school like his older brother, but unlike Josh, Matthew intends to major in computer science. It’s his fallback option, in case logic-based artificial intelligence is developed and replaces lawyers, he said to me soberly. I laughed. I think he’s going to do just fine.
When I last spoke to the Moons, they seemed hopeful. On the horizon is Josh’s graduation, and afterward, he plans to continue at his law internship as a full-time legal assistant. Danny, for the first time since opening the business, is taking some time for himself and cutting down on the late-night hours.
Still, Sundays are family nights for the Moons, who make the trip to Westwood to work a shift together. Behind the counter, Matthew chopped crunchy chicken cutlets into bite-sized pieces. Yun-Hee, who comes in on Sundays just to be with her son and husband, bagged orders next to him.
“Honestly, I don’t need her help,” Danny said. “I have employees. I can do it. But she just wants to spend time with me, so we come together.”
It was only 8 p.m. There were still another five hours of service ahead.
After we finished speaking, I thanked Danny for his time, and he thanked me for mine. I waved goodbye and began my walk home down Gayley Avenue. He would be frying chicken with his family long after I left.